Ghosts That We Knew
by greymcdreamysgh
Summary: MERDER. Picks up after 9x11. A short multi-chapter fic about being a family, preparing for a new baby, recovering from the plane crash, and dealing with survivors' guilt.
1. Chapter 1

_You saw my pain washed out in the rain  
Broken glass, saw the blood run from my veins  
But you saw no fault, no cracks in my heart  
And you knelt beside my hope torn apart  
But the ghosts that we knew will flicker from view  
We'll live a long life_

The checks come when Meredith doesn't expect them.

They are going into work late because they've got Meredith's sixteen-week doctor's appointment at 10:00, and so Derek is cooking breakfast and they are having a leisurely morning. Zola, sitting at the kitchen counter next to her mother, has eaten her own scrambled eggs, and has started on Meredith's. Meredith coaches Zola to eat with her fork instead of picking the eggs off her plate with her hands, but Zola eats with so much gusto that it's kind of a lost cause. Derek laughs because, as he says, this is just another in a long series of moments that proves that biology only counts for so much; Zola reminds him so much of Meredith.

"Just let her go, Meredith," Derek says as he whisks more eggs into the frying pan.

"She's a big girl, Derek. Right, Zo?" she asks. "You're a big girl and big girls eat with forks."

"I'm hungry, Mama," Zola says. Zola is kneeling on the chair, elbows on the counter as she picks at Meredith's food. "I eat this too?"

"Slow down, Lovebug. Your belly's going to hurt if you eat too much."

"I'm making more for you, Meredith."

"I don't care about that; I just don't want her to puke," Meredith says, remembering a similar incident with take-out French fries last week that ended with vomit all over the backseat of her car. "The fork will slow her down. And it's good for her to start practicing. Surgical dexterity."

"She's two," Derek laughs.

Meredith is about to respond that it's never too early when the doorbell rings. Derek raises an eyebrow. "Who could that be?" he asks.

"Who could that be?" Zola mimics, her eyes wide.

Meredith laughs a little at Zola and shrugs. "Sit down, Zo. On your butt," she says before she gets up to get the door.

She signs for two FedEx envelopes at the door and by the time she sits back down at the counter, Zola has crouched over the plates again and juice is dribbling down her cheeks as she munches on a strawberry. Meredith opens the first envelope and is shocked into speechlessness.

"What is it?" Derek asks as he slides some eggs from the pan onto her plate.

"It's a check," she says, "For fifteen million dollars."

"Oh," Derek says. He holds the pan there and just stares at her.

"So I guess the other one is in this envelope," she says, holding up the unopened one.

He places the pan back on the stove and takes the empty chair on the other side of Zola. "Thirty million dollars."

It's a staggering amount of money, even for someone who was raised by someone who won the Harper Avery twice. "I know."

"Should we go to the bank?" he asks.

"I guess we should. Or hire a financial advisor or something."

She stares at the check in her hand for awhile and wonders if a lifetime is even enough time to spend this money. Ellis's estate paid her medical school tuition, and Derek's world renown as a neurosurgeon has long since paid off his student loans. They have a house already and they work too much to take a vacation and neither of them cares that much about buying stuff anyway. It's a shameful amount of money, much too much. But there's no other way that anyone can attempt to pay them back for what they have lost.

Suddenly, though, there's no time to think about the checks because Zola throws up her breakfast all over the counter and just like that, they go from running early to running late. Zola barely even cries, and when Meredith presses her lips to Zola's forehead and her hands lightly on Zola's neck, she can tell there's no fever. She just got too full too fast.

"She's gotta use the fork, Derek," Meredith says as she strips off Zola's pajama top and bottoms.

"I throwed up, Mama," Zola says, staring at the vomit on the counter as Derek starts to clean it up.

"I know. I think you ate too much, ZoZo. Do you feel better now?"

"Yeah."

"Next time, we have to slow down when we eat, ok? Come on, let's go brush your teeth and find you some clothes." She lifts Zola down from her chair, careful to avoid the mess. "Go in the bathroom and put some water on your toothbrush."

Zola heads into the bathroom alone, and Meredith turns to Derek. "So apparently she was hungry. I think I'm done with eggs for awhile," she says.

"Yeah, that did it for me too," he agrees. "But apparently my scrambled eggs are so good that they literally make people burst."

"Yes, but maybe not four eggs for one kid next time," she says with an eye roll, and picks up Zola's soiled clothes to put in the wash. "I better go make sure she doesn't get into the toothpaste. Ready to go at 9:15?"

* * *

Zola is as good as new by the time they get to the hospital at 9:45. They drop her off at daycare, and she runs to Sofia like they've been separated for weeks instead of just overnight.

Derek has noticed a change in Zola's relationship with Sofia after they both turned two. They are starting to play with each other now, instead of just next to each other, and they genuinely enjoy each other's company. Of course, they hit some snags when they get tired or cranky or refuse to share with one another, and they haven't yet worked out all of the finer points of wholly non-violent conflict resolution—but they are toddlers, and even then, just barely. And in any case, Derek loves that his daughter already has a friend.

Meredith is talking to one of the scrub nurses, who has a little boy in the three-year-old class, about a birthday party Zola is invited to next weekend and while they iron out the details of Zola's social life, Derek just watches her play.

Zola helps Sofia build a tower of blocks, and when they knock it down together, they both scream with laughter. And suddenly, he can't stop staring at Sofia. She is Callie over again; she looks exactly like her mother. But when she roars when she knocks the next tower down, he sees Mark in her. He supposes Sofia has a check for fifteen million dollars waiting for her too. Mark would have wanted her to have it, would have given anything to this baby, but the stupid thing is that Sofia is two years old and isn't even conscious of what money is. The stupid thing is that what she really needs is her father.

He needs to do a better job. It's been difficult with his hand, and the pregnancy, to find the time. He knows that Sofia has two incredible moms who won't let her grow up without knowing her father, but he also knows that he is the keeper of Mark's life before Seattle. When Sofia gets older, maybe she will want to know what Mark was like when he was in kindergarten, or in seventh grade, or as a senior in high school. And he is the only one who can tell her. Maybe she will just want to talk to someone who has a dead dad too.

Mark would do these things for Zola, if the situation were reversed.

There is no good reason why things turned out the way they did.

* * *

Every day, it gets a little bit easier to believe that she really is pregnant. Granted, she hasn't been able to button her jeans for two weeks, and she cries out of nowhere, so it's undeniable at this point.

But still. She feels the pressure of the transducer on her abdomen and it's easier to accept the joy she feels when the sound of the baby's heartbeat fills the room. It's easier still to squeeze back on Derek's hand and to watch her OB use her finger to trace the baby's head and spine on the screen.

"Everything looks normal," the doctor says. Her OB is remarkably upbeat, and Meredith can't tell if it's just her personality, or if it's part of her approach to dealing with patients like her, who are nervous wrecks. Either way, with every appointment and with every reassurance, it's easier to believe it.

"Looks normal or is normal?" Meredith asks.

The doctor smiles and corrects herself. "Is normal," she assures her. She takes a towel and wipes the gel off Meredith's stomach. "You're measuring right at sixteen weeks. Your progesterone level is good. All your labs are normal. You look great. You're pregnant."

Meredith nods, and fixes her shirt as Derek helps her sit up. If he has been worried that anything was less than normal, he hasn't shown it. Which, she supposes, is a good thing, since she isn't sure she would be able to handle both of them flipping out. But now his confidence isn't another source of worry for her; she is less sure now that this will ultimately break his heart.

"Before you leave, you need to schedule your twenty-week ultrasound for next month," the doctor says. "And you guys should think about whether you want to find out the sex of the baby because we'll be able to do it then if you want."

Meredith looks at Derek, and he grins and raises an eyebrow, but his feelings on the issue beyond that are unreadable.

"Do we have to decide now?" Meredith asks.

She never thought it would get this far, and so she has tried to catch herself every time she has visualized a little boy or a little girl. She's tried to keep it abstract, just for her own sanity, and so they've never talked about this. She's not sure whether she wants to know or not.

"No, no, of course not," the doctor quickly replies. "We don't even have to do it at the twenty-week appointment, but we can if you want to. We can also wait. Totally up to you guys, but talk it over and let us know when we see you next month."

"We'll think about it," Derek says.

They make their appointment for next month, and then they leave. Bailey's covering for her, so she should get on the floor soon, if only because even though Bailey is _Bailey_, it would still be a lot for her alone to keep _all _of those interns from royally screwing up all day.

Before she leaves Derek to change into her scrubs, he asks her, "Do you think we should find out?"

She sighs. There's something to be said for being surprised, but there's also some truth in the idea that their entire relationship, for better or for worse, has been one surprise after another. She hasn't made up her mind yet. "I'm not sure. What do you think?"

"I'm not sure either."

"What would you want?" Meredith asks.

"A baby," he replies. "Just a baby."

Meredith smiles, and a sort of inexplicable warmth fills her up from the inside. "We're having one of those."

* * *

After they put Zola to bed that evening, Meredith folds three loads of laundry, stacking the clothes in piles on the coffee table, while Derek unloads the dishwasher so he can put more dishes in it.

"Did you think about what the doctor said this morning?" Derek asks.

"A little," she replies. With a late start that morning, plus dealing with Brooks as her intern, trying to round on her post-ops, and being called to the pit for a MVC right in the middle of it, she felt like she was playing catch up for most of the day. But in her free moments, she let herself wonder.

She isn't sure if she is supposed to have some sort of mother's instinct, if she's supposed to already know somehow what it is, because she has no idea. She has had to work so hard to let herself believe that there will be a baby at all, that thinking about the gender has felt for so long like a presumptuous activity.

But today she thought about what their lives will be like in a few months when there are four of them, and if it even matters at all whether Zola will have a baby brother or a baby sister. When she thinks about it that way, it doesn't seem to. Whenever she thinks that maybe Derek would like to have a son to do boy things with him, but she smiles to herself and remembers that Zola has a fishing pole and a Yankees hat and that she is big enough now to want to wrestle with her father as much as she wants to have tea parties with him. And when she thinks about it the other way, she knows that Zola brings them so much joy that how could another daughter do anything but the same?

She has learned from Zola that the baby you have is the baby you are meant to have. And in that sense, it doesn't matter at all.

Before she says anything more, she asks him, "Did you think about it?"

He stacks their dinner plates in one of the cabinets and replies, "I did."

"And?"

"I'm still considering it."

"I mean, like you said earlier: it doesn't matter."

"No, it doesn't," he agrees. "But logistically speaking."

"What do you mean?" she asks.

"Well, getting everything ready for the baby, it might be easier to know. Like if it was a girl, we have a lot of clothes and toys already."

Meredith frowns. "We don't have any newborn stuff though, either way. And I donated a lot of Zola's stuff that she had grown out of. So we'd kind of be starting at square one regardless."

"What about the nursery though? I mean we had Zola's room ready to go because we built the house when she was already here. But we've just got white walls in the other room."

Meredith stacks Zola's folded laundry in one basket and starts trying to match up all of her loose socks before she can tackle Derek's and her own stuff.

"But don't you think the baby will sleep in our room for awhile?" she asks. "We have some time. And we brought Zola home with basically nothing and we kind of threw everything together without that much of a problem."

Derek turns the sink on and starts rinsing off the stack of dishes in it. "So you don't want to find out?" he asks.

"I didn't say that," she says, tossing balled up pairs of tiny socks into the basket. "I just don't think we _need _to."

"Well, are you curious?" he grins.

"Kind of," she admits with a smile.

"So maybe we should find out."

"We're only going to have one chance though," she says quietly. "So maybe we should be surprised."

He frowns. "Meredith. You don't know that."

She doesn't mean for him to take it any sort of way, but he does, and his expression wilts a little as he looks at her from across the room. It's a truth that he has been all too happy to acknowledge when he can use words like 'miracle' and 'amazing' and 'unbelievable.' But the other side of a miracle, as joyous as they both can be about it, is that by definition it is a once in a lifetime thing. And with the acceptance that she really is pregnant, a tiny part of her worries that maybe they will both get greedy.

"I'm just saying we should enjoy this," she says. And even though she kind of does, she says, "I didn't mean anything by it."

He dries his hands and closes the dishwasher, and when he sits down next to her on the couch, he says, "I didn't mean…. I'm happy. I'm so happy, Mer."

She smiles, and slides the remaining laundry basket closer to the middle of them. "I'm happy too."

He pulls one of her shirts out of the basket and folds it. "So are we finding out?"

She rolls her eyes. "Ask me something easier."

He sighs. "We have to do something with those checks."

It's not a question, and it's not easier. She's not sure what they should do.

* * *

He slides into bed next to Meredith and turns out his lamp. He curls around her and kisses her shoulder and he thinks she's asleep until she whispers, "There's thirty million dollars in the kitchen right now."

"I know," he replies.

"It's freaking me out," she admits.

"Because of how much it is?"

She reaches behind her and rubs his thigh. "Yeah, and how we got it. And how the hell we're supposed to get rid of it."

He is a wealthy man. He has been for years, and though thirty million is certainly much more money than he's ever received at one time, it doesn't feel like an inconceivable sum to him. But he does feel something about it. Now that it's over, he has to keep reminding himself that there was a point to taking this to court. When they started litigation, it seemed obvious that the eventual outcome would be some sort of cash settlement, but he didn't do it for the money, and at the time, he didn't give this particular outcome much thought.

He did it to try to alleviate the sense of helpless grief he felt when he watched Meredith bury her sister and when he took his best friend off life support, a feeling he hadn't looked in the eye since his father died.

He did it because he was angry that Arizona had to learn how to walk on a prosthetic leg and Cristina spent a catatonic week in the psych ward and Meredith still couldn't get on a plane, even now.

He did it to try to get some power back when he felt impotent and when everything, not just his hand, felt numb.

He did it because someone had to know. Someone had to know what it was like for him to wake up in a hospital bed with Meredith in the chair next to him, crying and holding on to Zola for dear life. Someone had to know that Lexie Grey and Mark Sloan had lived and then died.

He did it because he had to do something.

Now that they've been, in theory, paid back, it remains true that the only things that are fixed are those that they fixed themselves. True, he still has weeks of physical therapy left on his hand, and even though Callie is begging him to be cautious, he will likely operate again. Arizona is walking, Cristina is working, and Meredith is smiling.

But Lexie and Mark are still dead. And an insurance loophole means that the hospital, for now, is who must pay. Derek believes the hospital will be tied up in counter-litigation with the plane manufacturer for months or even years, and while it will be expensive, he doubts that the hospital will actually be on the hook for $75 million.

He hopes so, anyway. Because the point of all this was to protect other people, and to make the plane manufacturer pay for the gross negligence that killed members of his family. He didn't mean to hurt the hospital, but the settlement was ordered to be paid immediately, and so now he's got enough money to buy a couple of planes of his own sitting on his kitchen counter and he feels like somehow this has gone wrong. The plane company dodged a bullet and the relief he was expecting has not come.

"We should do something good with the money," he says. "At least try to make something meaningful out of it."

"Yeah," Meredith replies.

"I don't know what that is," he says. "Do you? Do you want anything?"

He slings an arm over her waist, and she covers his hand with hers.

"No," she replies. "The only thing I can think of to do with it is save it for the kids. Granted, thirty million dollars, even after taxes, will pay for undergrad and medical school about fifty times over, but that's all I really want."

This is the only thing that's been said about the entire ordeal that has made him smile. He has worried about her, because he knows the risk as well as she does, of course, but also because he wants her to enjoy this as much as he is. He understands that it has been harder for her. He remembers her elated smile when he held up that t-shirt, and how tightly she held on to him afterward. But he knows she has been terrified and tense for weeks, and that's only recently started to go away.

"You said 'the kids,'" he whispers. "Not just Zola."

"It's not just Zola anymore," she agrees, and he doesn't have to look at her to know she is smiling.

He buries his nose in the crook of Meredith's neck and then kisses her shoulder. He rubs her hip for a second before he lets his hand rest on her stomach, and when she closes her hand over his, he feels like maybe he can get some rest tonight.

* * *

**A/N: I wasn't planning on writing anything because-and this might be the first time I've **_**ever **_**said this-I have almost no complaints about the direction the show is taking Meredith and Derek right now. And even then, I think my only one is that there's just not enough of them, so I decided to do something about it. There are a couple things about what's going on with them right now that I can't get out of my head, and so I wanted to do a multi-chapter fic, albeit a super-short one, to kind of get those ideas out. If you wait for the show to do it, you're gonna be waiting a long time. **

**Please excuse any inaccuracies about the legal process; I'm not a lawyer and I tried to keep some degree of plausibility but I didn't go crazy with it because I want to have a little creative freedom without being tied down to legal minutiae that isn't really the point of the story anyway.**

**Please let me know what you think. I would love to hear from you, and I should have the next chapter ready to go soon!**


	2. Chapter 2

_So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light  
'Cause oh that gave me such a fright  
But I will hold on as long as you like  
Just promise me we'll be alright_

To be fair, there is no way he could have known. When Meredith thinks back, the last time something like this happened, she was all dark and twisty and she and Derek were in their weird together-but-not phase. They spent most of their time in her bedroom avoiding their problems, and she didn't really tell him very much about anything.

So there's no way he could have known that she might get upset when she came downstairs one morning to find two fifteen-million dollar checks stuck to their refrigerator with magnets.

She does not like that this money is in the house at all, but she does not like the idea of getting rid of it either. Derek has already left for the day because he has an early surgery scheduled, and he's probably already in the OR, so she can't call him about this right now.

She held these checks in her hand yesterday, and she handled it fine, so she's not sure why this morning, looking at them is making her heart pound.

Lexie's blood money is staring at her.

Having this money makes sense, but it also doesn't, because how can something be overkill and not enough at the same time? She knows that they deserve something, and that this is the only thing there is to give, but it feels like a half-empty gesture rather than a real quid pro quo. It was supposed to bring closure, but right now, it feels like this wound feels like it has been reopened and that closure is a nice idea but it probably doesn't exist.

Almost everyone she knows probably has a check on their fridge too, and she wonders if she is freaking out because she is the hormonal pregnant one with the dead sister, or if the others feel like this too.

She picks up the phone without giving it any thought, and while it rings, she thinks that this call was kind of rash and probably a stupid idea. She is thankful when it goes to voicemail because it allows her to hang up without saying anything. It _is _a stupid idea. But then she realizes that a missed call is already going to register, so she may as well say something. After all, she is the only one Meredith thinks might be able to understand.

She redials, and when it goes to voicemail again, it takes a second for her to talk.

"Izzie, please call me. Everything's fine," she says, only because she feels like the only times she ever calls anymore is to let her know that somebody died or almost died. "But I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important. Please call me."

She hangs up and shakes her head at herself. If Izzie wanted to talk to her, she would call more. She would have met Zola. Maybe she wouldn't have left Seattle at all. But Izzie doesn't call, and she hasn't met Zola, and she did leave. And it was a stupid idea to call her now, but Meredith doesn't know what else to do.

She tries to put the blunder out of her mind as she wakes up Zola, microwaves some oatmeal, and feeds her breakfast. And while Zola chats away—Derek is right; biology only counts for so much; she is a morning person like her father—half of Meredith expects the phone to ring and half of her knows that it won't.

It doesn't ring when she sits Zola on the bathroom counter and wipes the oatmeal off her face, and it still doesn't ring when she dresses Zola and puts her in the car. So she gives it up as a bad job and goes to work.

At work, nobody wants to talk about the money. She knows that everyone is fighting their own battles, that they are all exhausted, and that Cristina especially just wants to get back to normal. So she doesn't bring it up. It's strange: the whole lawsuit was pursued in all-for-one unity, and now that it's over, somehow everything has shifted to this weird state of isolation.

She has lunch with Cristina and Alex, and she wonders if she is reading too much into the situation, but it feels a little stilted. It is too uncomfortable to talk about the lawsuit in front of Alex, and the only other thing Meredith has to contribute to the conversation right now is that she called Izzie in a moment of weakness. This might be the only other thing in the world that, if discussed at this table, would be more awkward than the lawsuit.

When Derek pages her in the late afternoon, he thinks that he is just letting Meredith know that he needs to stay a little late because one of his high-risk patients should be waking up from surgery shortly.

"I know I haven't seen you all day," he says apologetically, "But would you be able to take Zola home? I won't be long, but I don't want you guys to wait for me."

"Yeah, I can take her," she agrees. He nods, and then it all spills out: "We can't have that money on the refrigerator. I don't want to look at it. You have to get it out of the house."

His expression falters and his eyes widen just a little. Maybe it is just from holding it in all day, but she can't stop herself from saying again, "I don't want it there, Derek. Please get rid of it. You have to get rid of it."

"Meredith," he says quietly, his voice full of concern. She isn't sure if it's her own voice, or the sound of his, that makes her want to start crying. "What's wrong?" he asks.

"Izzie had a check like that on our fridge. At the old house, after Denny died. She stuck the check up on the fridge because she couldn't deposit it, and it made her crazy looking at it. Or Denny dying made her crazy and the check thing just made it worse. But it wasn't right, just letting it sit there. Lexie and Mark are dead and I don't want that money sitting there like it's some kind of prize. I don't really want to deposit it either, but Bailey was right; that's the healthy thing to do. And I can't go crazy. I can't fall apart. So that's what we should do. We should deposit it. I need you to get those checks out of there."

When she stops talking, she realizes that Derek is staring at her like he has absolutely no idea what she is saying. She can blame it on the hormones when her eyes fill with tears.

"Ok," he says quickly, pulling her into a hug. "I'll take care of it."

She nods and squeezes his shoulder. "Please."

She tries to pull herself together and ties up her loose ends for the day before she goes to get Zola from daycare. When she gets up there, Zola seems like she's in a mood, and allows Meredith to scoop her up into her arms without much talk.

"Hi," she says. "Did you have a good day?"

Zola nods, but clings to Meredith and puts her head on Meredith's shoulder. It's getting a little unwieldy to lift Zola now that she is getting older and there's also a belly in the way, but she hoists Zola up a little more and squeezes her tightly. "Ready to go?"

"Go home, Mama."

"We are, Zo. Do you want to carry your bag?"

The independent streak started a few weeks ago with Zola wanting to walk everywhere instead of to be carried, to carry her own diaper bag even though the thing is about half her size, and to run without holding their hands. Meredith has worried about it, thinking that she had more time before all of this started, but sometimes Zola still wants to be a baby and that makes her feel a sense of relief.

By the time they make it to the car, Zola is happier now that she has Meredith all to herself, and she wants to tell Meredith about her day while they drive home. She has gotten so much better at talking over the past few months. Sometimes she still lacks the words for everything she wants to say, and sometimes she gets so excited that it can be hard to understand her, but Meredith tries her best to respond to commentary about purple juice at snack time and coloring pictures with Sofia.

Zola is in the middle of telling Meredith all the letters in the alphabet when the phone rings. Zola must think it's either her daddy or Cristina because she quiets down long enough for Meredith to answer.

"Mer, what's wrong?" Izzie asks, her voice filling the car through the Bluetooth. "I'm sorry I couldn't call earlier; I had back to back surgeries today."

Meredith smiles to herself, thankful that, despite everything, Izzie is working. She's ok. She's still a surgeon.

"Nothing's wrong," Meredith says. She catches a glimpse of Zola in the rearview, and Zola wrinkles her nose at the unfamiliar voice.

"Mer," Izzie says, and Meredith feels a little guilty because she has called Izzie exactly one time since she moved away to give her good news, and that was that they had adopted Zola. Every other time, it's been to let her know that she is still alive after the most recent disaster.

"Who's that, Mama?" Zola asks.

"It's my friend Izzie," Meredith replies.

"Who's that, Mama?" Zola asks again, but Meredith doesn't reply.

"Nothing's wrong, Iz," she replies. "I just wanted to ask you something."

"Ok," Izzie says cautiously. "What's up?"

Meredith struggles for a second to determine how to begin as the car rolls to a stop at a red light. If Izzie had answered her phone this morning, Meredith is sure the words would have come pouring out, but now that she's gotten ten hours of distance, it's harder to summon them again.

Zola takes the moment's silence to interject again. "Mama!" she cries, frustrated at being interrupted by a stranger. "Mommy, Mommy, Mama!" When Meredith doesn't answer quickly enough, she cries out again: "Mom!"

Izzie stifles a laugh. "Is that Zola?" she asks.

"That's her," Meredith says. She glances in the rearview again. "What is it, Lovebug?"

"Look!" Zola says, pointing at an ambulance one lane over and two cars up.

"I see it," Meredith says. "That's an ambulance."

"Ambulance," Zola agrees, and she reaches for one of her books on the seat next to her and starts to flip through it.

"She's two now?" Izzie asks.

"Yeah, close to two and a half, actually," Meredith says. She takes a beat and then says, "You should come meet her, Iz."

"I know," Izzie replies quietly.

Meredith used to have a big, loud, complicated family here—one that could have probably rivaled Derek's—and when she thinks about the fact that Izzie, of all people, has not seen her baby, it feels strange and unexpected. It makes her love Cristina that much more, but it also makes her sad for who has been lost. Izzie's "I know" is different from "I will."

"What's going on, Meredith?" Izzie asks again.

Meredith takes a deep breath, and hopes that Izzie will understand. "We sued for damages from the plane crash and we won. We all got fifteen million dollars each."

"Oh," Izzie says, and Meredith can tell that she understands what Meredith is trying to say without her having to actually say it. "I'm sorry."

Everyone was sorry about Arizona's leg, and Derek's hand, and about Lexie and Mark. No one has been sorry that they got paid, but these words feel appropriate here too.

"Yeah," Meredith sighs. "And Derek put the checks on the fridge, I guess just to keep them away from Zola and to remind us that they were there and we had to do something with them."

"Like you could forget," Izzie interrupts.

"Exactly. He didn't know, and he was just trying to help, but it freaked me out," she admitted. "I don't know what to do."

Izzie laughs again, but it sounds painful this time. "Not sure I'm the best person to be giving advice on that, Mer. Unless you want to just do the opposite of everything I did."

"What do you do with money you don't want?" Meredith asks.

"Get rid of it in the best way you can think of," Izzie advises.

"I don't know what that is."

"It's ok. You don't have to know yet."

"Mommy? Mama!" Zola says, throwing her books on the floor with a thump. "Home yet?"

"Almost, Zola. Shh, I'm talking on the phone." She turns her attention back to Izzie and says, "Now that it's over, I feel like we're supposed to feel better off, but it's making me feel worse. Like it's supposed to be a silver lining or whatever."

"Did anyone say that to you?" Izzie asks incredulously.

"No, but I feel like people expect me to be all relieved and I'm not. None of us are."

"Screw other people, Mer. You're allowed to feel whatever you want."

"What should I do with it?" she asks again.

"I don't know. You should get it out of the house though. You won't feel better keeping it there."

"Yeah," Meredith agrees.

"I'm sorry I'm not more of a help," Izzie says. "But I wouldn't wish it on anyone."

Meredith sighs. It's just nice to have someone understand. "This helped," she says. "A little, at least."

"Well, that's something," Izzie says. She pauses for a second and then asks, "How is everyone?"

Meredith hedges, unsure of what to say, wondering which wounds are still raw. Alex is growing up. She sees him hanging out with Wilson, and though she doesn't know what to make of that yet, she knows that he is becoming a great surgeon. He is becoming who Izzie knew he could be.

"Everyone's good," she finally replies.

"That's good," Izzie says softly, and Meredith knows that a silent understanding has passed between them.

"Mama, I want my books," Zola says, tired of sharing her alone time with Meredith.

"You shouldn't have thrown them on the floor then, Zo," Meredith says. "We're almost home."

"No," Zola says, and she kicks her legs out a bit.

Meredith sighs. "Iz, I have to go. Thanks for listening."

"Of course, Mer."

"Oh, and Izzie?"

"Yeah?"

"Just so you don't think I only call with bad news," Meredith takes a breath, and smiles. "I'm pregnant."

* * *

Before they go to their 20-week appointment, they decide to wait until at least the 24-week appointment because after going back and forth for a month, they still aren't sure whether or not they want to know if they are having a boy or a girl.

Meredith insists on ultrasounds at every appointment though, and because she's been so nervous, it's a request her doctor is happy to indulge if it keeps her stress level a little lower.

After going through all of Meredith's lab work, and measuring her belly, their OB starts the scan, and turns the speakers on so they can listen to the heartbeat for a minute. Derek is sure he could never tire of this sound.

The OB drags the transducer slowly across Meredith's abdomen, stopping often to take measurements. He studies the screen and can't help but smile, but tries to hide it. He doesn't want to say anything when Meredith is still so undecided about this, but she is too quick for him and his expression does not go unnoticed.

"What?" she asks curiously, looking up at him with a furrowed brow and a puzzled grin.

He mulls his options for a second, and then decides that she probably won't be _that_ mad if he just comes out and says it. He turns to the doctor and asks, "It's a girl, isn't it?"

"What?" Meredith bursts out, sitting up a little with her elbows propping her up, and looking at the doctor in shock.

The doctor's expression is unreadable for a second, like she's afraid they both might be upset with her for not being more careful, but then she too must decide there's no use in denying the obvious. She freezes the image on the screen and says, "Yes, it is."

"What?" Meredith says a third time, and Derek can't tell if she's upset or excited. "How do you know?"

Derek points at the screen. "See the legs," he says. "And there, between them. Definitely not a penis."

Meredith scoffs, and shakes her head. "Is he right?" she demands of her doctor.

"Yeah, he is," her doctor says with a cautious smile. "The legs are here and here," she says, tracing them with her finger. "And that's a vagina between them."

Meredith looks stunned, alternating between staring at the doctor and the screen for a few seconds before she turns her attention back to him. "I know how she knows," she says, cocking her head towards the doctor. "How do you know?"

"You know how to read ultrasounds," he says. "We look at them all the time."

"Not fetal ultrasounds!" she exclaims. She hasn't lain back down on the table yet and their poor OB is just standing there, still unable to get a good read on the situation.

Derek shrugs. He likes seeing her get worked up because he finds it adorable, but he will feel badly if she really is upset. He just can't help it if, because of his past, he may have seen way more fetal ultrasounds than your average neurosurgeon, and he can't do anything about his guilty smile.

"Oh, I should have known," Meredith cries, throwing up her hands and rolling her eyes. "His ex-wife is an OB/GYN and a neonatal surgeon," she tells the doctor like it's some sort of crime.

"I've seen a lot of ultrasounds," he says apologetically.

Meredith turns and stares back at the screen. He can't make eye contact with her anymore, but he can see her eyes glisten and fill with tears. She doesn't say a word, but covers her mouth with a few fingers, and he gets a sinking feeling in his stomach that he has ruined this moment for her.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I'm really sorry."

She turns and looks at him now. "Why are you sorry?"

He raises an eyebrow, but doesn't say anything. It's a delicate moment and something tells him that if he says "because you might be pissed," he's going to get smacked.

"You weren't sure if you wanted to know yet. You were still thinking you might want to be surprised."

"I _am _surprised," she says with a slight laugh, and some of her tears spill over. "It's a girl."

He can't help but laugh a little too, and he kisses her with her face cupped in his hands and hugs her as tightly as he can. It takes a few minutes before the doctor can finish the rest of the ultrasound.

She takes the rest of the baby's measurements and lets them know that everything is still on track, and the baby looks perfect and healthy.

"So her butt is right here," the doctor says, laying a palm on Meredith's lower abdomen. "And her head is here," she says, with another hand a few inches away, up by her ribs.

"So she's breech right now?" Derek asks. That little shift from 'it' to 'she' is so lovely that he allows himself a second to savor it.

"She is," the doctor agrees. "But we don't have to be concerned about that for a few months. We have plenty of time. She'll turn before it's a problem."

Meredith takes a deep breath and nods. Then she turns to Derek and asks, "When do you want to tell Zola that she's getting a little sister?"

* * *

It's not like, up to this point, she was unaware of the fact that there is a human being inside her. She is a doctor, after all, and it hasn't been that long since she spent some time on the gynie squad seeing the whole process through to the end.

It feels a little different now that she knows it's a girl, though. She is an actual person who moves and kicks, and will be here before they know it. Even though she knows it's insane, Meredith swears that she kicks when she is bored. She wonders what it is going to be like when Zola and this little girl are both competing for her attention.

The Saturday after they find out, they sit Zola down to tell her the news. Maybe Meredith's belly has been growing so gradually that it's hard for Zola to notice the changes in real time, or maybe she is still too little to really understand, but even though Zola has known that there will be a baby for a few weeks now, she only mentions it sometimes.

"Zola, you know how Mommy has a baby in her belly?" Derek asks.

"Baby in Mama's belly," Zola nods, pointing at Meredith's stomach.

"That's right," Meredith agrees. "And guess what, Zo? We have another surprise for you."

Zola's eyes widen. "Two babies?"

Meredith laughs. "No, just one baby. But the baby in my belly is going to be a girl. So you get to have a baby sister."

Zola looks confused, and it takes Meredith a second to realize that maybe Zola doesn't know what a sister is.

"So a sister is like a friend," Meredith says.

"Like Sofia?" Zola asks.

"Kind of, but your baby sister is going to live with us, and we are going to be her Mommy and Daddy too. You know how Sofia's mommies are Callie and Arizona?"

Zola nods.

"So your baby sister will have the same Mommy and Daddy as you. And you get to have a new friend."

"She can play on the swings with me?"

"Well, she's going to be really little at first," Meredith says, "Because remember she's going to be a baby? But when she gets bigger, then yes, she can play with you as much as you want. Would that be good?" she asks hesitantly.

Zola nods vigorously. "When is my baby sister gonna be here?"

Meredith smiles in relief and pushes down the twinge of pain that comes when she thinks about another little sister. Zola is happy. There is a chance here to fix some of the wrongs of the past.

* * *

Derek Shepherd is destined to spend his life surrounded by women.

Since his second hand surgery, he has tried to be better about letting his sisters and mother into his life. He is grateful for what Liz has done for him, and so far, the only way he has been able to show it is to have Zola FaceTime with them all on Meredith's iPad.

When he sees them all, it makes him even more conscious of the fact that he will soon have two daughters and with that, he is following so closely in his father's footsteps. That realization comes with a set of heightened expectations for himself. He has a lot to live up to.

Since they told Zola about her baby sister a few weeks ago, she has been getting more and more excited and ever since he told Zola that he has a baby sister too, she has been peppering him with questions whenever the inspiration strikes.

They haven't settled on a name yet, so they just call this girl "baby" or "baby sister."

"Can my baby sister come here too?" Zola asks one morning while they throw torn up bits of bread into the lake for the ducks.

He says yes.

"Can my baby sister read this book with us?" she asks before bed one night.

"My baby sister will sit right here?" she asks a few mornings later, pointing to the empty space next to her in his car's backseat.

He says yes, and yes again.

He loves her questions, and takes great joy in answering them for her, and in imagining what their lives will be like when baby sister gets here. But he is so grateful for Zola's limited perspective. When she asks about Amy, it's hard for her to conceptualize Amy as anything other than a baby. That's what she is getting, so that's what Derek must have too. Only a few times has she asked where Amy is, and she is easily satisfied when Derek tells her the truth: that Amy is a grown-up now who lives far away, but maybe she will visit soon. He doesn't have to tell her that baby sisters are more complicated than shared books and backseats.

He's grateful too that Zola sees so many different kinds of families. She doesn't wonder why her parents don't have fathers. She doesn't know that Sofia is supposed to have a daddy too.

He feels guilty for thinking so, but he's even more grateful that Zola can't remember Lexie very well. Even with all of this talk about sisters, Zola never makes the connection. Derek spends a lot of time hoping that Zola won't ask about Amy in front of Meredith for this reason. He knows that Meredith will remind her about Lexie one day, but right now, that day seems far off.

He wants everything to be better for Zola, and it's easier to imagine that it can be when he stops every single story about his life with sisters when he reaches age 15. Everything got a little bit worse after his father was gone.

It's been hard not to think about it after he got shot himself, but even more so after Zola came, and after how quickly she almost became an orphan. It is not impossible to imagine that they all could have died, and what then? Nobody plans on dying; not his father, not Mark, not anyone.

* * *

**A/N: Thank you all (including the guest reviewers to whom I was unable to respond personally) for your kind words up to this point, and for all of the favorites and follows. I am pumped about this story, but I had no idea that it would create so much excitement on Twitter and elsewhere. I'm kind of embarrassed, but very grateful that you all are along for the ride.**

**So the story has kind of grown because this part was supposed to have a few more components and when this part as it stands now got to be about 1,000 words longer than part 1 **_**without **_**adding anything else, I finally had to say, "Ok, this needs to be its own thing." So there will now be six parts instead of four. Regardless, I would love to hear from you on this, part 2 of 6.**


	3. Chapter 3

_So lead me back, turn south from that place  
And close my eyes to my recent disgrace  
'Cause you know my call  
And we'll share my all  
And our children come and they will hear me roar_

Eight weeks after the checks show up at their house, the layoffs start.

They start with people who have lower profiles: the housekeeping staff, lab techs, the line employees in the cafeteria. Meredith assumes that the board thinks that these people will not be missed by the doctors and nurses, and therefore their absences won't cause a panic among them about job security.

Unfortunately, though, the board does not spend enough time in the hospital to understand. Omar, the man who cleans Meredith's favorite OR after her surgeries is there one day and gone the next. When she asks Murphy for lab results, saying that if she asks Jerry to do them they'll get done more quickly, Murphy tells her that Jerry got laid off. And the Barbara, the woman in the cafeteria who toasted many, many bagels for Meredith during the long months of morning sickness, is gone without a trace.

Most other doctors have similar relationships with other hospital employees, but even if they didn't, Meredith is quick to realize that there's nothing the board could have done to avoid a panic. The nurses look harried, and the interns are getting sloppy. Even Bailey seems worried, which Meredith has learned over the years is never a good sign. Everyone seems to think that they will be next to go.

"You'd think the hospital would have a little more cash on hand," Cristina says when they sit down to lunch. "People are dropping like flies. It took me forever to get my post-op labs back for yesterday's triple bypass."

"I know," Meredith replies. "It doesn't help that everybody is freaking out. Every intern I've had this week hasn't been able to focus."

"Yeah, well they've been idiots since day one," Cristina says.

"Well, it's been worse since this all started."

This group has been a little wackier than those in years past, Meredith has to admit, but even for them, this level of craziness is unprecedented. They've been here for eight months and lately, they've been acting like it's their first week.

Meredith won't let any of them do more than observe her surgeries. Part of her thinks that it might be counterproductive, that they'll feel like they're being shut out and therefore everything will get worse, but she is unwilling to let their inability to keep their eyes on the ball harm one of her patients.

She takes a sip of her water and, out of the corner of her eye, catches a nurse in the cafeteria line say something to her friend in line next to her and cock her head towards where she and Cristina are sitting. Meredith makes eye contact with this woman for just a second, and then they both look away. It's just the most recent in a long series of moments over the past few days exactly like this one.

"Do you feel like people are staring at us?" Meredith says quietly, even though nobody could possibly hear their conversation over the dull roar of the cafeteria at lunchtime.

Cristina shrugs, and Meredith takes that as a yes.

"This is our fault."

"No, it's not," Cristina says firmly.

"People wouldn't be losing their jobs if it wasn't for the lawsuit though."

"There wouldn't be a lawsuit if our plane hadn't crashed," Cristina replies.

Not since the merger has the hospital been this tense, and even then, the hospital wasn't planning to shed as many jobs as they are now. They've tried to dress up the whole process with fancy words that sound good like 'streamlining' and 'creative solutions' and 'twenty-first century medicine' but what it all seems to mean is that whoever is left standing at the end of this will be forced to do more with less.

It is terribly ironic to Meredith that she herself has never felt more secure in her job at the exact same time that she has just come into extraordinary wealth. She worries about what it means, about what it says about her, that her job has been saved and she has been paid and the people who make barely more than minimum wage were sacrificed in order to make it possible. She feels worse that this is surely just the first step. The board and the hospital's accounting department will undoubtedly try to plug the huge financial hole that the five of them have ripped open with nurses, interns, and residents next. And after that, the patients will pay.

"Don't you feel even a little guilty though?"

Cristina sighs. "Don't you think that anybody could understand that we all would rather this have never happened?"

* * *

Derek has been thinking that he needed to make this call for awhile, but he doesn't actually do it until Meredith is 24 weeks pregnant. It took him that long to psych himself up, even though he's not sure why. Afterward, it takes him three days to tell Meredith. He knows exactly why he is hesitating for that.

Late one night, after Zola has long since been asleep, he stands next to Meredith at their bathroom sinks while they get ready for bed. He catches her eye in the mirror while they brush their teeth, and after he spits into his sink, he finally tells her.

"I called our lawyer this week."

She leans over the sink as far as she can with her belly in the way, spits, and cups some water in her hand to rinse. "About the money?" she asks.

"No," he says. He knows it's been bothering her a lot, especially since they've all started to feel the repercussions of the payout at work, but he hasn't been able to muster up the same concern. Of course he feels badly about people losing their jobs, but he feels worse about everything that has happened to them.

"I called her about updating our wills," he says. "Because we almost died. Both of us."

"And Lexie's dead," Meredith sighs, and he knows she understands.

"We should talk about who we want the guardian to be now, just in case," he says.

"Cristina," she says immediately, but he shakes his head.

"No," he replies.

"Why not?" she asks, and he can tell she's already getting defensive. "She's Zola's godmother."

"We're not naming Cristina guardian," he says firmly. "I know she's your person, but…"

"But what?"

"Meredith, would she even want them?"

The words are out before he can stop them, and while he doesn't like the hurt and surprised look in Meredith's eyes, his first priority here has to be Zola and Baby. He cannot forget the fight that Cristina had with Owen at Zola's birthday party last year, and while he acknowledges that their relationship isn't really any of his business, putting his kids into it very much is.

"Derek," Meredith warns, and suddenly the discussion has escalated.

"I'm serious! She didn't want a baby with her own husband. Why would she want to raise our kids?"

"Because they're our kids!" Meredith fires back.

"I know she loves Zola, and she'll love the baby too," he says, trying to keep his voice level. "But there's a difference between loving them and raising them. She didn't want kids for a reason, Meredith. You have to respect that."

"You think, if both of us died, that she wouldn't take them?"

It's not like he hasn't thought about it. It would be impossible not to, after all that's happened, and it's why he called their lawyer in the first place. He should have done it the day they got rescued from the woods, but somehow it's taken him until now to stare this in the face. When he forces himself to imagine it, he of course sees Cristina taking Zola and the baby if she had to. And maybe for awhile it would be ok while they all fought to keep the grief from swallowing them up. But kids are for life, and Cristina will still have to be there with the same intensity and the same love and the same commitment when the girls are nine and seven years old, when they're teenagers, and forever after that. It's a lot to ask of someone who has made it explicitly clear that it is not the life she has imagined for herself.

"I think she'd take them," Derek replies. "And it might even feel like she wanted them at first. But she doesn't want to be a mother and that's what she'd have to be."

"Cristina's the only one besides Lexie who I trust to raise them the way we would raise them," she says defensively.

"Cristina wouldn't raise them the way we would!" he says. Meredith's love for her friends, especially Cristina, has blinded her to a lot of things over the years, but how can she not see this? The only way that this conversation could be going worse right now is if he raises his voice to the point that Zola wakes up, so he tries to be conscious of that when he says, "Cristina would raise them the way your mother raised you! That's why we picked Lexie in the first place!"

"Who would you want then?" Meredith replies.

"I was thinking maybe Liz and her husband," he says.

Meredith is staring at him, leaning against the bathroom counter looking at a loss for words. "Seriously?"

"She's my sister."

"Yeah, and we've been together seven years and I just met her three months ago, Derek," Meredith cries. "And all of a sudden, we're giving the kids to her?"

He can understand where she's coming from, but when he thinks about it—especially the fact that anybody else he would have trusted his kids to was on the plane with them and is either dead or could have died just as easily as they themselves could have—it's the only way forward that makes sense to him.

"She has kids. She would love them like they were her own. She's my family."

"Cristina's _my_ family," Meredith says. "And I have to say, Derek, my family and I fight a lot less than you and your family do. Come on, half of you don't even talk to each other!"

Part of him thinks it's a bit rich of Meredith to talk to him about dysfunctional families. Part of him knows she has a point. But he feels somewhat trapped by the knowledge of his own mortality, and they have to do something.

"Liz already has kids," he says. "She knows what she's doing."

"No," Meredith says firmly. "I don't want them taken out of Seattle. This is their home."

"Don't you think that if we both died, it would be more important for them to be with someone who loves them?"

"Cristina loves them!"

There are almost no pictures of Meredith as a little girl, but he's seen a few, and whenever he looks at them, he cannot help but imagine the horror that was her childhood. She is tough, but he sees the effects her upbringing had on her manifesting themselves even thirty years later. He watches her trying to make everything she does for Zola different and better than what she had, and it breaks his heart.

Cristina is not the same as Ellis. Deep down, he does know that, just as much as he knows that Cristina truly does love his daughter. But it's not enough to change his mind.

"I won't allow it, Meredith," he says.

"You won't allow it?" she asks.

Her eyes fill with tears, and she pulls her shirt down a little further over her belly. He hasn't meant to make her cry, and with how emotional she's been lately, he's surprised she's lasted this long.

"I don't want to talk about this now," she says, turning to go.

"We have to, Meredith."

"Why?"

"Because we could die!" he says helplessly. "We could drown or get shot or get crushed under an airplane. And we have kids. We have to talk about this. It's not just us anymore, and Lexie's dead, so we have to talk about this because we could die."

"I can't," she replies.

She leaves the bathroom and he can hear her walk downstairs before he can say anything more, before he can say that he can't stop thinking about what his life might have been like if both of his parents had been in his father's store that day. That nothing but dumb luck kept both of them alive when a man pointed a gun at both of them. That there's no reason why either one of them didn't die under a twisted piece of metal in the woods.

* * *

She can hear him walking around as she sits at their kitchen counter, a glass of water cupped in her hands, but she can't go back upstairs. Not yet. She needs a few minutes to catch her breath, to feel a little bit more prepared to have this conversation.

She has forced herself to think about Zola growing up without her before, back when they thought they might not get her back, but she has never considered it in quite this way. She's been so focused on keeping the baby alive over the past few months that she has not given her own mortality much thought.

Finally, he comes downstairs and sits down next to her. He stares at her for a second and then quietly says, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get you upset."

"I'm not going to give my kids to just anybody," Meredith says. "I know Liz isn't just anybody," she continues before he can interrupt. "But neither is Cristina."

"I know," he replies. "What about asking Callie and Arizona?" he asks.

"Really?" Though she does not immediately hate the idea, it takes her a bit by surprise. She has gotten closer with them over the past two years—certainly, at least, since the plane crash—and she is grateful for everything Callie has done for Derek. But she never thought about them in this way before.

"Maybe," Derek says. "They're in Seattle. They have a daughter. Who, as an added bonus, is Zola's best friend. They would do a good job with our girls, Meredith."

"A compromise," she says.

He nods.

It wouldn't be as good as she and Derek raising them, but then again, nothing would be. This solution makes sense, but it gives her pause for a reason she doesn't expect. She worries a little about Baby, and how she might feel if Zola and Sofia are as thick as thieves and she must always compete with Sofia for her big sister's attention. The hypothetical alone makes her feel guilty, but she supposes that if she and Derek are both dead, then both girls will have bigger problems.

"I think that would be ok," she agrees.

"We should ask them soon," he says. "Do you want Cristina to be a back-up?"

"Aren't Callie and Arizona already a back-up for us? Isn't that the whole point of naming a guardian? Do we need another one?"

"I would feel better," he admits.

"Ok, Cristina then."

"And then Liz?" he asks.

"Derek," she says. "I don't know if this is really necessary."

"Please? I'd rather us be over-prepared."

"Ok," she sighs, and she notices that he looks visibly relieved.

He stands up, and kisses her. "I'm sorry I yelled," he says. "Will you come to bed soon?"

"Yeah," she replies, and he goes back upstairs.

She finishes her water, and tries to collect herself before she gets up. She peeks into Zola's room, easing the door open slightly so as not to wake her. Zola sleeps in a toddler bed now, and even though it's only about a foot and a half off the ground, Meredith has put pillows and blankets all over the floor surrounding the bed just in case she falls out. They made a big deal about getting her this bed, telling her that she was going to give her crib to Baby Sister, and that made the transition a lot easier but Zola was ready anyway. She's never fallen out of bed.

Meredith tiptoes inside and sees that Zola has kicked all of her blankets off herself and is lying on her back with her arm over her head, peacefully asleep in green pajamas with pink hearts printed on them. She must have gotten out of bed soon after Meredith and Derek put her down because there are definitely about six more stuffed animals in bed with her now than there were a few hours ago. Meredith kisses her forehead, pulls the blankets back over her, and leaves to go to bed herself.

He's still awake when she slides into bed next to him, and she doesn't think anything of it until she turns the light off and he says, clearly but quietly, "I'm scared we're going to die."

She rolls on her side and strokes his arm before taking his hand in hers. As far as he is concerned, the trauma this hand sustained—and the possibility that Derek might have to live a life without surgery—has been her biggest worry for months. But now that is not going to happen. Derek is back in the OR, whole and healed, or so she thought.

"We're not going to die," she says, for both of them.

"I don't want the kids to grow up without us."

"They won't," she says softly.

He squeezes her hand, and her thoughts vacillate between the memory of him holding Sofia at Mark's funeral and the image of him as a boy at his own father's funeral. She has been in such a fog of grief for Lexie and worry for Cristina and Derek that she has not seen this clearly up until now.

She moves closer to him under the covers and kisses him. When she rolls on top of him, it's a little awkward trying to work around her belly, but it's still the best way she knows to make him feel better.

She kisses him again, and he sighs when she pulls away, running his hands through her hair and then down her arms.

"Is this ok?" she asks.

"Yes," he breathes.

She kisses him over and over, on his mouth and then on his neck, and her hair falls forward to frame both of their faces. He rubs her back a little before his hands come to rest on her sides, just under her breasts. He grows hard underneath her, and she wants him too, but comfort is not to be rushed. She takes her time with him.

"We're not going to die," she says again, breathless between kisses.

"We're alive," he says.

He groans a little, and takes his hands off her ass to tug at the hem of her shirt. He looks into her eyes with so much trust and desire and adoration, and she doesn't know how else to articulate what she is feeling except to tell him that she loves him.

* * *

**A/N: Sorry for a bit of a longer wait between chapters this time. Despite getting a flu shot, I got sidelined with the flu this week and it was slow going for awhile—which might be why I'm not 100% sure about this chapter because it was written in such a piecemeal way. I'm feeling better now and I would love to hear what you thought, even though I think this will likely be the weakest piece of this fic. **

**I am pretty excited about the direction in which the show is going right now, and I'm also wondering if you would share with me how you feel about it. I have never written a canon fic that deals with events that are still unfolding on the show before. I have plans for what to do with the money here, but I'm wondering how much attention you'd like it to be given or if you're kind of burnt out from what has—admittedly—been a very long story arc on the real show.**


	4. Chapter 4

_But hold me still, bury my heart on the coals  
And hold me still, bury my heart next to yours_

When they told Zola that she was getting a baby sister, Meredith did not anticipate how difficult it would be to continually explain to a two-and-a-half-year-old with no concept of time how long nine months is.

Zola asks about her baby sister almost every day. Sometimes she is satisfied with the explanation that her baby sister needs to grow more and she will be here when she's big enough. Other times, she is impatient and wonders if there are other ways to get baby sisters that don't take so long.

With three months to go, Zola is furious that Baby Sister is not here yet. The only thing that Meredith can think of to do is to take Zola back to the library. She has tried to take her once every other week, and she lets her pick out whichever books she wants. Zola gets greedy sometimes, wanting to check out like twenty books at once, but Meredith lets her. She wants to promote Zola's language acquisition as best she can and she is sure that all this reading is helping Zola become such a good talker.

The children's librarian had always seemed to recognize Zola from the first time Meredith brought her in at seven months old. Sometimes Meredith worries that Zola is only recognizable because she is a black child with a white mother, but other times, when Zola walks around trying her best to hold on to ten or twelve books at once, she is so cute that Meredith figures that _this _is what is really memorable.

When they went to the library the weekend after they found out they were having another girl, the librarian, a surprisingly young-ish woman who seems to defy a lot of librarian stereotypes, greeted Zola with what she must have thought were just simple pleasantries.

"Hi, honey," she had said as Zola and Meredith walked into the children's section.

"Hi!" Zola had replied. "I'm getting a baby sister."

Meredith hadn't been able to help but stifle a laugh. Zola had been bursting to tell this news to absolutely everyone she encountered. Cristina had to pretend like it was brand new information when Zola shouted it in the elevator on the way to daycare, and the poor teenage boy who bagged their groceries that week had no idea how to respond at all.

The librarian, though, had responded perfectly.

"Wow! That's great!" she had said, looking up to smile at Meredith. "Are you excited to be the big sister?"

Zola nodded vigorously.

"You know what?" the librarian had said. "I think I have some books that you will really like."

Now, a month and a half after that visit, when Zola cannot understand why Baby Sister is not yet here, Meredith takes her back to the library to try to buy some time.

The same librarian, who now knows Zola by name, greets her when they come in.

"Ask her for what you want," Meredith urges. "Nicely."

"I can have those books about baby sisters again, please?" Zola asks.

Fifteen minutes later, she and Zola are headed home with a stack of books that Meredith realizes they will probably need to just purchase eventually. After all, they do have three more months to go.

That night, Meredith sits on Zola's bed with her back against the wall and Zola melded so close to her that it seems like she wants to be part of her. Zola can't fit on Meredith's lap anymore, but after a tough few days, she seems to have made her peace with sharing the space.

"Zo, you can have two books," Meredith says, exhausted after a long day. "Not all of them."

They have already read almost allof the baby sister books—eight of them so far—since coming home from the library that morning, and if Meredith didn't say no, they'd be reading them all again now, in addition to the ones they haven't gotten to yet.

Meredith doesn't like reading the ones that express ambivalence about a new baby. Although she supposes it is good for Zola to know that the baby will cry and poop and not really be able to play, she is so excited and Meredith really doesn't want to put any ideas in her head that this might not be as good as she thinks it will be.

It speaks to the unusualness of their situation that the library doesn't have a children's book that deals with it. They have read books that feature the traditional nuclear family, and even one or two where the second child is the adopted one, but they haven't been able to find one where the second child is biological one.

Zola chooses one re-read and one new book as bedtime stories for the evening, and after going through the first one, a whimsical picture book that explains how important and loved the big sister is while also explaining what life will be like with a new baby in the house, they start on the next one. As they flip through page after page of pictures and words about pregnancy, they get to a page that shows a series of profile shots of what a growing baby looks like inside its mother.

"What's that?" Zola asks.

"That's how a baby grows. See how it gets bigger and bigger inside the mama until it's ready to come out? We still have to wait a little bit longer for our baby, but soon she'll be big like that one," Meredith says, pointing to the last picture of a full-term baby, "And then she'll be ready to come out."

Zola nods.

It is easier than she thought it would be to answer that question, and Zola seems perfectly fine with her response. They've been talking about the baby growing inside Meredith for months.

But Zola's next question floors Meredith.

"I did that too?" Zola asks.

They have talked to her about adoption before. But suddenly, it doesn't seem like they have done it enough, because she clearly doesn't understand. Ever since she got pregnant, Meredith has started to think of Zola as the big sister, as someone older. But she is not even three years old yet, and now it seems obvious that this would be confusing to her. They haven't talked about it enough, and up to this point, Meredith has been kind of proud of it because maybe it means that Zola has never felt different. But they probably should have talked about the difference between adoption and birth, maybe even as early as when they told her about the baby for the first time. But they didn't, because Zola was so excited and, truthfully, the distinction between Zola and Baby is one that Meredith does not care to make because it feels nonexistent. Or it felt nonexistent, until now.

She cannot lie to her child. Zola is just curious, after all. Meredith takes a deep breath, realizing that Zola has presented her with an opportunity.

"Well, sometimes babies grow in their mama's belly, and sometimes they grow in their mama's heart and they grow in another belly instead. You didn't grow in my belly," Meredith says.

"I didn't?" Zola asks, and Meredith feels like she might panic—Zola sounds _so_ disappointed—but she wills herself to keep going.

"No, but you know what?"

"What?"

"I wanted to be your mama so much. And I am so happy that I'm your mama because I love you more than anything. The same as Baby."

Zola is at a loss for words, and Meredith kicks herself, blaming everyone from the librarian—did she not screen the stupid books before she sent them home with her daughter?—to herself for not talking about this more in the first place.

Meredith has always thought that it is good that Zola sees so many different kinds of families. She is sure that it is the reason why Zola has never wondered why Sofia has two moms, or why she has never seen Tuck's daddy. The people in Zola's life are white, black, Asian, Latina, gay, and straight. And maybe that's why it doesn't bother her that she doesn't look the same as her parents do. She has never asked about any of it before now.

"I wanted to be in your belly too," Zola says helplessly. Her eyes fill with tears, and Meredith can hear that she is struggling to keep it together. She hates herself for making Zola feel this way, like she might be less a part of Meredith than her sister will be.

Meredith closes the book about babies, and asks Zola, "How about a big sister Zola story instead of a baby sister one?"

Zola nods, and Meredith tries as best she can to lie down in Zola's bed, trying to situate Zola next to her. It's a tight fit since it's only a toddler bed, but she tries her best. Meredith turns on her side, wanting to look into Zola's eyes, but Zola crawls into Meredith's arms so they are practically nose to nose.

"When you were a baby," Meredith says softly, "You grew in another mama's belly in a place called Malawi, but then the people who were taking care of you couldn't take care of you anymore. They loved you, and so they wanted you to have a family who could love you and take care of you forever. So when you were a little baby, you rode on an airplane, and you know where you came?"

"Where?" Zola whispers.

"Right to our hospital. And guess who was taking care of you when you got there?"

"Who?" Zola asks.

"Daddy."

"Daddy taked care of me?"

Zola's eyes widen like this is the best story she has ever heard. Meredith smiles, because it _is_ the best story _she_ has ever heard.

"Yes, and you know what he thought when he saw you?"

"What?"

Zola runs her hand up and down Meredith's side, from breast to waist, over and over. She does it for comfort sometimes, and Meredith just lets her go. She worries that maybe this story is not age-appropriate for Zola, but so far, she seems to understand. At the very least, she isn't about to cry anymore.

"Daddy thought, 'Zola is the baby we've always wanted.' As soon as he saw you, he just knew that he was your daddy. And then he said to me, 'Meredith, I think Zola is our little girl. Let's adopt her.' Adoption means making a family forever. And that's what we wanted to do."

"Adoption means that?"

"Yes, adoption means a family forever. You had to stay in the hospital for a little while before you could come home, but we came to see you every day. One night, I came to see you and you were lying in your crib and when I picked you up, I told you that I wanted to be your mama. But you know what?"

"What?" Zola asks.

Meredith runs her fingers over Zola's hair and kisses her forehead. "That night, I just held you and held you and held you, until you fell asleep. And I already _knew_ that I was your mama."

"You did?" Zola asks. She curls into Meredith's arms, and even though it's a snug fit with Meredith's belly in the way, Zola manages to cling to her, resting her head on Meredith's shoulder and burrowing into the crook of Meredith's neck.

"Yes," Meredith says. "You are my baby."

"No, I'm big," Zola mumbles sleepily into Meredith's skin.

Meredith laughs. "You're right. You're big."

She stays with Zola, rubbing her back until she falls asleep, and holding her the same way she did in the hospital two years before. She stays long enough that Derek pokes his head in a little while later to check on them.

"Is she ok?" he asks, watching her hold their daughter in the low lamplight. "Are you coming to bed?"

"She's ok," Meredith replies. "But can you help me lift her? I want her in our bed tonight."

Derek tiptoes inside and gently lifts Zola out of her arms, just long enough so she can crawl out of Zola's bed herself. As soon as she stretches for a second though, she wants Zola back. She carries their sleeping daughter upstairs into their bed, and when Derek joins them a few minutes later, Zola is still peacefully asleep, clinging to her mother.

* * *

One Saturday afternoon in the late spring, when Meredith is seven months pregnant and exhausted and Callie and Arizona are both on call, Derek takes Zola and Sofia to the park.

He has loved Zola so much and for so long that it takes him a little bit by surprise that these feelings could ever intensify and that he could get more joy from her than he already does. But as he sits on the bench on the outskirts of the jungle gym and watches his daughter play, it's thrilling to be proven wrong.

Zola hides behind one of the platforms on the jungle gym and pops out to scream with delight at Sofia, who laughs and chases Zola around the gym's perimeter. There are a few other children playing around them, but they only have eyes for each other. Zola climbs up the rungs to get to the slide and he wonders if he should spot her, just in case, but then he realizes that Sofia is doing it for him. There's room for them to climb side by side and when Sofia realizes that she has gotten a bit ahead of her friend, she slows down and waits.

"Come on, Zola!" she cries, but she never leaves her behind.

Zola is a miracle. He forgets sometimes, when he and Meredith both get caught up in the daily work of parenting, of taking her to daycare and cooking her dinner and making sure her teeth are brushed at night. He doesn't always take the time to appreciate it, but the fact that she exists, andthat she is not only walking but _running_, and that he is her father—these things are miracles.

"Daddy, watch me!" Zola shouts as she stands at the top of the slide.

"I'm watching," he calls back. It was not long ago that she needed him right there, asking him to catch her rather than just watch. But she is almost three years old now and she is quick to remind him that she is a big girl.

Zola tumbles out the bottom of the slide laughing. Sofia follows quickly behind, colliding with Zola, who hasn't actually exited the slide yet.

Together, they climb back up, paying no mind to the bigger kids who are also playing in the same area. He sees her reaching for the monkey bars, but she's too little to grasp them.

He pops up and jogs over to her; for this, he can help. "Want to try that, Zo?"

"Help, Daddy!" she cries. He picks her up and allows her to reach up and grab the bars, guiding her lightly as she crosses. When he sets her down on the other side, he turns back to Sofia, who is standing at the beginning, watching them.

"Do you want to try too, Sofia?" he asks. She nods, and he carries her across as well.

He misses Mark in this moment, not for himself, but for _Mark. _He knows that a lot of fathers wish their children's baby years away so they can get to these more fun moments when their kids are able to play sooner. Mark was never like that; he loved every second of Sofia's babyhood. But he would have loved this too, maybe more, so Derek tries to enjoy it for him.

They are boundless. They play hard, and even though Zola can't run as quickly or as long as Sofia can, they both have so much fun that it doesn't seem to matter. Derek notices sheens of sweat starting to form on both of their foreheads, but he lets them go. Zola has had so much energy lately, much more than he has, or especially Meredith has, and he wants her to tire herself out before he brings her home.

Later, he tries to corral them so he can buy them ice cream, but even the promise of ice cream isn't enough to calm them down at first. He can get a hold of Sofia, but not Zola, and then vice versa and he wonders what it will be like when this is his life all the time.

Finally, he sits them both on a park bench, popsicles in hand, and he positions himself in front of them to make sure they don't get up and run away.

"How is it, girls?" he asks.

"Yum," Zola says. She bites off the top part of the popsicle, and it's too much for her to fit in her mouth all at once. The treat hits her shirt and then starts to melt in her lap, but Zola can't be bothered about getting sticky or ruining her clothes. She picks up that piece and shoves it back into her mouth with her fingers.

Sofia is a little more demure with her popsicle, but she's a mess too. He hopes that Callie and Arizona won't mind that he will be returning a sweaty, dirty kid to them a little bit later.

His phone beeps with a text message from Meredith.

"Who's that, Daddy?" Zola asks with her mouth full.

"It's Mommy," he replies and unlocks his phone.

_Going out to get some summer clothes for Z and B. Need anything?_

She's been nesting a lot over the past few weeks, which for Meredith means trying and failing to bring the house up to OR levels of sanitation, and making a lot of trips to Target.

_Don't think so, _he types. _Still at the park. See you when you get home?_

"Can I talk?" Zola asks before he can hit send.

"I'm just texting her," Derek replies.

"No, talk," Zola says.

There's no reason not to, so he dials Meredith and then holds the phone up to Zola's ear.

"I can hold it," she says, with a melting popsicle still in one hand.

"No, I'll hold it. You're sticky," he says.

"Hey, do you need anything?" he hears Meredith ask when she answers the phone.

"Mommy, it's Zola!" Zola cries.

"Hi, Lovebug," Meredith says with surprise. "Do you have Daddy's phone?"

"I have a blue popsicle," she says.

"Sounds good, Zo," Meredith says with a laugh. "Where's Daddy?"

"Holdin' the phone cause I got blue on me. Mama, me and Sofia are playing."

"Are you having fun?" Meredith asks.

The popsicle is dripping down Zola's hand in the warmth of the afternoon sun, and Derek grins as Sofia taps Zola on the shoulder and points to the melting mess she's holding. Zola extends her hand, and whether Sofia originally wanted a bite of Zola's treat or not, she takes one now that Zola has offered. Sofia returns the favor, and Zola takes a bite of Sofia's popsicle too.

"I'm eating a popsicle," Zola says with her mouth full.

"That sounds fun," Meredith replies enthusiastically. "I'll see you when you come home from the park. Can I talk to Daddy now?"

Zola nods, and Derek takes the phone back.

"Hey, I don't think I need anything," he tells Meredith. "We're almost out of milk though."

"Ok, I'll get some," she replies.

"She's definitely going to need some new clothes," Derek says. "She's got more popsicle on her shirt than in her mouth, I think."

"Yeah, she's getting too tall for a lot of her leggings. And the baby has basically nothing."

"Well I'm sure you're going to have a shower or something," Derek says, hoping that she won't come home with the store's entire inventory.

"I know, but I'm not going to fully rely on that," she says. "It sounds like you're having a good afternoon."

"We are," he replies.

Suddenly, Zola crinkles her nose and shuts her eyes tightly, shaking her head back and forth.

"Is your head getting tingly?" he asks.

Zola nods.

"What's wrong?" Meredith asks quickly.

"Nothing," Derek says, laughing at the face Zola is making and the strange look Sofia is giving her. "Your daughter is having her first brain freeze."

"Oh," Meredith sighs with a giggle. "So she's ok?"

"Yes, she's fine," he assures her. "Zola, you're ok. Your brain got too cold from the popsicle. If you look up for a minute, you'll feel better."

Zola looks up at the sky for a few seconds, and the brain freeze must start to dissipate because when she looks straight ahead again, she licks what remains of her popsicle and then licks her hand to try to get at all of the sticky congealed liquid there.

Sofia has already given up. She puts her popsicle on the bench next to her and watches it melt and seep onto her clothes. She is sticky everywhere too, and she looks up at Derek helplessly, like she might cry.

"You know, this two-kid thing is no joke," Derek says to Meredith, rummaging around in the bag he brought with him for wet wipes, or anything to try to clean them both up a little before he puts them in the car.

"Yeah?" Meredith asks.

"What are we supposed to do when they run in different directions?" he asks.

"I'll go one way; you go the other?" she offers, and he can tell she is smiling.

* * *

When Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital announces that it will stop accepting Medicaid patients at the start of the hospital's 2014 fiscal year in July, Meredith knows she has to do something.

The hospital has limped along for months while has been tied up in counter-litigation with the insurance company and the plane manufacturer. They have laid off support staff, and nurses, and even doctors all the way up to attending to try to stay afloat. And now the patients are going to pay.

She understands the logic behind it—that they can't get reimbursed from Medicaid at the same rates they can from private insurance companies, and so there's nothing in it for them—but poor people get hernias and have accidents and need appys and craniotomies and valve replacements too. And Seattle Grace Mercy West will no longer be providing these people with services.

Some of the doctors and other hospital staff wonder why it has taken so long to do this. A few people are not shy at all about saying that the hospital should have done this years ago, or at least as the first line of defense before cutting personnel. After all, this is the way to get paid. But it doesn't sit right with Meredith.

She feels like her hands are somewhat tied, because they are the ones who did this (they are _not_, Cristina keeps reminding her). She feels worse because she isn't that busy, and they're booking surgeries for Callie and Jackson back to back because plastics and sports medicine always bring in the money. Worst of all, the nurses and support staff—everyone who is left—are being run ragged trying to keep up with the increase there while still maintaining other services.

Meredith pulls Derek aside after rounds that morning, into an empty stairwell, where she hisses at him: "We have to do something."

"About what?" he says.

"Did you hear that the hospital isn't accepting Medicaid patients anymore?"

"Yes, I did. But I'm not on the board and I'm not chief of surgery anymore. There's nothing we can do."

"Derek!"

"Meredith, what do you want me to do?"

She raises her eyebrow and cocks her head towards him.

"No," he says. "Meredith, no."

"Come on, Derek. It's just sitting there. We don't need it."

"No," he says matter-of-factly. "Meredith. We have two kids who are going to have about twenty years of school. Each."

"I know," she says. "Good thing their parents are both doctors. We can put them through school, Derek. But maybe not if we don't have jobs."

"We're not going to lose our jobs, Meredith."

"We might," she replies. "Plus, it's just wrong what they're doing, Derek! And we can stop it."

He sighs. And he is about to reply when her pager goes off. She walks down two steps—her page is coming from the ER, the floor right below them—and then turns to face him.

"Please, just think about it," she says. "It's not right."

When she gets downstairs, she is pretty sure that the teenage girl who is curled up in the fetal position on the gurney has got a bad bowel obstruction. But she has to rule out everything from pregnancy to drug abuse to a kidney infection first. Murphy is on her service today, so she asks her to do a full lab workup and to try to get her in for a CT as soon as possible. She gives Murphy instructions to page her as soon as the results come in, and then she moves on to other patients.

When Meredith sees three other patients and has lunch with Cristina and Murphy still hasn't paged, Meredith pages her instead.

"Murphy, where the hell are my labs and CT results for my bowel obstruction girl?"

"The lab hasn't paged yet to let me know they're ready, and we're on the schedule for a CT today, but I don't know when they'll get to us."

"So the girl's still in the ER?"

"Yeah," Murphy replies.

"Murphy! The poor kid came in four hours ago and is laying there writhing in pain, and we haven't even diagnosed her yet?"

"We have like half the orderlies and techs that we had before. We're doing our best, Dr. Grey, but this is the way it is now. I don't know what you want me to do!"

Murphy cringes as soon as she finishes, like she knows she might have gone too far and she is waiting for Meredith to blow back hard. So far, it's worked in Meredith's favor that the interns have all been afraid of her—it helps get things done—but Murphy is right; there is nothing they can do.

Meredith sighs. "Page the lab and get an update on her bloodwork. Get an estimate on how much longer it's going to take for a CT. Book an OR for later this afternoon, because I know she has a bowel obstruction and who knows how long it's going to take to get her into surgery if we wait for the diagnosis?" she says. "And go check on the patient. Tell her that we are sorry and we are trying as hard as we can to get this fixed as soon as possible."

A few hours later, after she has finally operated on her bowel obstruction girl, she catches Derek coming out of a patient's room as she writes her post-op note at the nurses' station.

"It took me six hours to get a teenager with a bowel obstruction into surgery," she says.

He shakes his head a little, but doesn't say anything.

"The kid sat in the ER all day," she says.

"I know, Meredith," he says wearily.

When Meredith gets home that night, Derek is spooning steamed carrots onto Zola's plate while Zola starts on her chicken.

"Just in time," he says. "Want some dinner?"

"Yes," she sighs. "I'm starving. Hi, Zozo," she says, sliding into the empty seat next to her daughter.

"Hi, Mommy," Zola says. "Want some carrots?"

"No, those are yours. I'll have my own."

She fixes herself a plate, and alternates between eating her own food and making sure Zola is eating too.

"How was the rest of your day?" Derek asks.

"Fine," she says. "My bowel obstruction kid didn't have a gangrenous intestine, despite spending practically all day in the ER. So she got lucky. The next patient might not."

"Do we have to talk about this now?" he asks. "Meredith, I'm having the same kinds of days you're having. We all are."

"We don't have to be."

"We also don't owe them anything," he says. He is so even-tempered when he says it that it stuns her.

"Are you serious?"

"It's the place where we work," he says. "Don't make it more than it is."

She stares at him at a total loss for words. She does not know how to explain because, before now, she did not think this would ever need an explanation. Her mouth falls open, and it takes her a second to collect herself, but he stops her before she can say anything else.

"Let's talk about it later," he says, motioning to Zola, who is mashing her carrots into a pulp before shoveling them into her mouth with her fork.

A few hours later, after Zola is in bed, it does not take long for the conversation they have been putting off all day to turn into a full-fledged fight.

"Meredith, your sister is dead," Derek shouts. "That's why we sued. Because that plane crash killed your sister, and it killed Mark, and it could have killed us too."

"Keeping the money isn't going to bring them back, and it isn't going to keep us alive," she replies heatedly.

"Neither is giving it to the hospital," Derek shoots back.

"Having it makes me feel worse," she says. "We shouldn't have sued in the first place. It didn't help."

"You don't know what it's like," he says quietly.

"What?"

"You don't know what it's like. Sofia's father loved her and now he's dead. Do you know what that's going to be like for her? Do you know how easily that could have been us? It could have been Zola. We're not getting rid of this money just because you hate having it."

"Don't you?"

"Not as much as I hate the thought of something happening to us and leaving the kids with nothing. It's a place where we work," he says. "We owe them a day's work. That's it."

"We're not going to die," she says firmly. It scares her that he keeps thinking this way, but she doesn't know what else to do except to keep saying those words. "And we don't need this money to make sure that the kids have something to fall back on. This is too much. We don't need it."

She can hear Zola walking around in her room, and she sighs. She leaves Derek and goes downstairs to check on Zola, who is padding across her floor in the dark with a few stuffed animals and books in her arms.

"What are you doing?" Meredith whispers.

"I want these in my bed," Zola says.

Meredith laughs a little and rolls her eyes. "You need to get back in your bed. It's bedtime, and you need to lie down."

"I can have these though?" Zola says.

"You can have them, but no lights on and you have to stay in bed."

"Ok," Zola replies in a sing-song voice.

"Zola," Meredith says. "No more getting up."

"I'm not," she says indignantly.

"Ok," Meredith replies. "I don't want to come down here again."

When she gets back upstairs, Derek asks, "Is she ok?"

"She's hoarding."

Derek smiles, and somehow the tension from a few minutes ago has diffused a bit.

"It's not just a place where we work," she says calmly.

"It should be."

"Maybe. But it's not, Derek. We fell in love there. We got married there, and had a baby there, and almost died there. It's not just a place where we work, and it's not crazy to want to save it from becoming this second rate chop-shop, or from going out of business altogether."

"I'm not giving the hospital thirty million dollars."

"Come on, I thought you liked hopeless cases."

He smiles despite himself, and when he shakes his head, she knows she has hit a nerve.

"I can't, Meredith."

"Why not?"

He sighs, and looks up at her with such sadness in his eyes. "What are we going to do if you get Alzheimer's?" he asks. "Maybe we won't have health insurance anymore. You won't be able to work. I won't be able to work."

"Derek."

"I have to take care of you. And the girls."

"I'm fine," she says firmly. "And the girls will be fine too. It's too much money, Derek. We don't need it, and it's wrong to keep it from people who do."

He sits down on the edge of the bed and puts his head in his hands. She's not sure if she should push any harder, and when he doesn't say anything for a few minutes, she sits down on the bed next to him, but doesn't touch him.

Finally, he looks up and says, "We invest. I'm not just writing a check. If you make a gift, there's only so much you can do. They'll slap your name on a building or something and then that's it. But if you invest, you can influence decisions. It sounds bad," he says, "But I don't just want to be a philanthropist. I used to be chief; I've seen the books. We've been struggling since before we merged with Mercy West and I'm not giving them thirty million dollars with no strings attached. I want some skin in the game; I want to be a shareholder; I want to make decisions."

"Ok," she says. These are terms she can accept. "Is thirty million enough to get a seat at the table?"

"I don't know," he says quietly. "Maybe."

"Then why bother?" she says in frustration. "If you're not sure, then what's the point?"

"Because I think you're a pretty good salesman. And if you make this pitch to the others, then I think we'll be able to get something going."

* * *

It takes a few weeks, but Meredith finally convinces them all. She can't get the whole $75 million back. Frankly, he would have been amazed if she did.

But Cristina's all in. After all, she says, she'll probably only leave the hospital in a hearse anyway and the best way she can think of to spend $15 million is to help the hospital stock itself full of sick people.

She gets most of Callie and Arizona's shares too. They are worried about Arizona's leg, and Sofia's education, and the ethical dilemma of half of their money really belonging to Sofia, not them. He can't blame them at all, and Arizona is so persuasive that he convinces Meredith that they have to leave some of their $30 million out too. But in the end, Callie and Arizona are in for a little less than half of their winnings, and he and Meredith are in for almost all of theirs.

It takes longer than he anticipates to make it all official—and it doesn't happen the way he originally thinks it will—but a month before Meredith starts her maternity leave, they convene their first meeting of the newly created physicians' council. Designed to function as an extension of the hospital's board of directors, they will oversee all aspects of patient care, quality control, and peer review. Its creation was the sole condition of their commitment to invest almost $60 million in Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital.

At first, it feels a little bit like a bribe or a hostage-taking—after all, they won't complete the transaction until the hospital agrees to their terms—but the hospital's situation is quickly deteriorating and it does not take long for Derek's qualms about the whole thing to subside. The five of them bring on other doctors from trauma, psych, OB/GYN, cardio, gastro, and internal, and together, they agree to elect him as chair of the council. He is the one who really has the gravitas and the savvy to play politics with the board and to implement the changes that they all know need to be made.

It's not perfect. To avoid conflicts of interest, they can't all actually be on the board and their overall power over the hospital's financial decisions is limited. But they have influence, and he, as the physicians' council chair, does get to vote in board meetings. It's slow progress, and their individual places on the council might not last forever. But they've raised the bar; the council exists in the first place. And its first act is to present a strategic plan for the hospital's next five years. It includes aggressive hiring goals; targeted investments in emergency medicine, neurology, and other departments; and the renewal of a government contract to accept Medicaid payments for fiscal year 2015 onward.

He believes the hospital will actually be afloat by this time next year, and in five years when the goals of their plan are, hopefully, fully realized. And when he votes for it to be adopted as policy in the fourth quarter board meeting, he is so proud and relieved. When he scrubs in for surgery later that afternoon and says "It's a beautiful day to save lives," he means it for the first time in a long time.

* * *

**A/N: Thank you all so much for your kind words so far, and for sticking with this fic. It's definitely a new kind of work—kind of like trying to constantly jump on a moving train as the show keeps going—and I appreciate so much the fact that so many of you are taking the time to tell me what you think! Ok, so there's a lot happening in this chapter. I thought it would be really important for Zola to have some time with her mama and daddy, just her, before the arrival of Baby Sister in the next chapter! So I spent a lot of time on those two things, and tried to find a way to have those moments weave in other aspects of the plot as well.**

**Finally, this is, in large part, the end of what I want to do with the money/lawsuit storyline. I don't work in healthcare or law, but I do work in philanthropy, so while I'm not 100% sure the way I did things is kosher—boards are supposed to be independent—I read a lot about hospital boards of directors and came up with what I think is a plausible and (probably) legal solution to their dilemma. That said, all mistakes are mine and hopefully if any of you are legal, business, or healthcare experts, you'll be able to suspend your disbelief. It's similar to what they've done on the show, but I think it's a bigger leap to think "Oh, we'll just buy the hospital" than it would be to say "Ok, we'll become shareholders in the hospital."**

**I'm, of course, eager to hear what you think about all of it, not just the lawsuit. Next up: one baby sister :) **


	5. Chapter 5

_Give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light_

Meredith's only surgery this afternoon is an emergency appendectomy. Her ten-year-old patient, a little boy named Evan, is brought to the hospital in an ambulance after the school nurse successfully recognizes that his stomach pain isn't from food poisoning. He is anesthetized and on Meredith's table before his classmates get on the school bus at 3:00.

The kid's anatomy is absolutely textbook, and so it takes her very little effort to perform a laparoscopic appy. She operates without a problem, even through intermittent Braxton Hicks contractions. They've been only minor annoyances since she started experiencing them about a month ago, and at this point, she barely acknowledges them.

After she sees Evan into recovery and speaks to his mother, she finds a place at the third floor nurses' station to catch up on her charting and to write Evan's post-op note. She documents his procedure and recovery so far, and while she writes, she feels a cramping ache in her abdomen. At first, she thinks nothing of it, but when a second pain comes about fifteen minutes after the first, she thinks that she maybe she should try to keep track, just in case. They hurt hardly at all, just kind of like the twinge of period cramps, but still—there's two in a row.

She writes two tally marks on the back of her palm, and goes back to charting until Cristina leans over the desk to grab a pen.

"Appy?" Cristina asks, taking an empty seat next to Meredith.

Meredith nods. "CABG," Cristina says with a slight air of superiority.

"Not a competition," Meredith says with a smile.

Cristina scoffs. "Not a close one, anyway."

The next contraction—that's what these are, she's almost sure now—comes right on time, fifteen minutes after the last one. At her last OB appointment a few days ago, she was already two centimeters dilated. She and Derek have been told to pack a bag, and to expect the baby anytime. But still, this surprises her. She knows that this is probably the real thing, and it seems amazing that such a regular day could turn into one of the most extraordinary of her life.

She stops writing, and squeezes the pen hard, shifting in her seat. It passes, and she feels fine again, but Cristina notices when she marks a third line next to the first two on her hand.

"What are you doing?" she asks.

"I think," she says as quietly as she can, laying a palm flat on her belly and squirming a little more, "I think I'm in labor."

"What?" Cristina says, not taking any care to speak quietly herself. She catches herself and asks, in a softer voice, "Are you sure?"

"Three contractions in a row. Fifteen minutes apart. I'm pretty sure."

"Ok," Cristina says, visibly flustered. "Ok. So you're sure?"

Meredith smiles. "I think so."

She has been so pregnant and uncomfortable for weeks. She is more than ready to have this baby, and thankfully, their daughter has decided to oblige her by showing up four days early. She is continuing her big sister's legacy of coming into their lives when they least expect it. Meredith shakes her head a little and smiles. Right after an appy.

"Ok," Cristina says. "So we should page Derek, right? He's the dad."

"He is the dad," Meredith says amusedly. "Cristina, it's ok. It's not like she's going to just pop right out. I'm pretty sure we have a little time."

"What do you know? You've never done this before."

Meredith laughs. "Neither have you!"

"Exactly. I'm calling in reinforcements."

"Ok, well stand down for awhile, soldier. He's in a meeting until 5:00. I don't want to bother him."

Cristina rolls her eyes. "There's a human being making its way out of your body as we speak. I'm pretty sure that trumps whatever meeting he's in right now."

Meredith manages to keep Cristina off the phone for a few minutes, but when the next contraction comes four minutes before she expects it, she reaches for the phone herself as soon as it ends.

"Paging Derek?" Cristina asks smugly.

"Yeah."

"Do you want me to take Zola home tonight?"

"Crap, Zola," Meredith says. "Yes, can you?"

"If you give me your keys, I'll take her in your car. We can stay at your house; she can sleep in her own bed."

"Thank you. Yes, that would be great."

Cristina stays until Derek gets there, rushing around the corner and over to them like he has been expecting this page for weeks. Cristina leaves with Meredith's keys and a promise to pick Zola up from daycare at her regular time, and suddenly, even though there are dozens of people milling around the third floor all around them, she feels quite alone with Derek. He takes the seat vacated by Cristina and watches her with a smile so big that it could crack his face in two.

She gets through another contraction with Derek's hand on her back, but so far, this has been manageable.

"We're having a baby," he says when it ends.

He leans forward and kisses her, and she smiles into the kiss. It's been a tossup as to who is more excited, Zola or Derek, but she can't wait to meet this little girl either.

"We are," she replies. "Today might be her birthday."

"Do you need anything?" Derek asks "Should we go up to labor and delivery?"

Meredith shakes her head. She knows they will hook her up to a fetal monitor and maybe an IV drip and restrict her to the L&D ward as soon as she gets up there, and from everything she has read and seen, this will take awhile no matter where they are. "I don't think we need to yet."

"Do you want to try to take a walk then? Or we could just find an empty on-call room."

"For sex?" Meredith asks.

"I was thinking more like resting and relaxing, but if you want sex, then I'm happy to oblige, Dr. Grey."

She knows that she is staring down six weeks of abstinence as soon as this little girl is born, but this year's bunch of interns just started a few weeks ago and this hospital feels way too crowded. She and Derek have been trying to snag empty on-call rooms for weeks—as soon as she was declared full-term. And nearly every time, someone has almost walked in on them, or one of them has been paged to bail out an intern who is in over his or her head. All she really wants to do is get this show on the road, and walking seems to be the least complicated of her options.

"Just a walk for now," she says. "But if my water doesn't break in a few hours then you have to find us a place to have sex."

"Ok," he says with a smirk.

"Do you promise?"

"Do I promise to have sex with you? Yes, I promise."

"Ok," she says. "Bailey has a whipple scheduled for eight o'clock. I thought maybe we could try to catch that."

"You want to try to catch an eight o'clock whipple?" he asks incredulously, trying and failing to stop himself from laughing at her.

She shrugs. "I think this is going to take awhile. And I don't feel that bad yet. Might as well watch a surgery while we're waiting for her."

He shakes his head. "Don't you think that Bailey might find it a bit distracting if you're contracting up in the gallery?"

Realistically, she knows that if her biggest concern right now is boredom, then she is still in early labor. But she feels like this might take a long time. They could probably even go home and come back, but a whipple sounds better and she's about to be off surgery for three months too so why the hell not?

"Bailey's pretty unflappable," she says.

In the end, he agrees to watch Bailey's surgery too. On their way outside to take a walk, she realizes that he is likely not to refuse her anything right now. She wonders what else she can ask for.

They walk around the hospital's campus for awhile, taking advantage of the dry skies and the relative privacy, and a few contractions pass without incident. After about an hour though, she feels a contraction build inside her, starting in her belly and spreading out to her back and hips. This one feels different. This one takes her breath away and stops her in her tracks.

She sucks in a breath and tightens her grip on his hand, and he stops too.

"Are you ok?" he asks.

She can't get the words out, but she uses whatever strength she has to pull him towards her. He wraps his arms around her waist, and she hugs him as the pain radiates through her body.

"Oh," she moans, pulling at the back of his shirt. "Oh, crap. This one hurts."

"Ok," he says gently. He rubs her back, and says again and again, until the contraction is over, "You're ok. You're doing great."

It takes her a moment to regroup after this one, and, six minutes later, when another one comes that's just as painful, she agrees that it's time to get admitted.

Upstairs, the labor and delivery nurses do exactly what she expects them to do. They hand her a gown and a cup to pee into, they hand Derek a clipboard of paperwork, and they settle her into bed. Bridget, one of the nurses who Meredith used to work with during her brief stint in OB/GYN, pops in to their room a few minutes later.

"Hi, Dr. Grey," she says. "Congratulations!"

Bridget is a bubbly, blonde twenty-something, and even though she is only two years out of nursing school, Meredith liked her a lot when they worked together, and she is glad that her nurse is someone she knows.

"Call me Meredith," she says, pulling her hair into a ponytail. "We're about to get pretty close; might as well be on a first name basis."

"Meredith, then," she says. "Ok, so you know the drill. We'll do vitals first, we'll take some blood, and we'll get you hooked up to a fetal monitor to check on the little one. Then Dr. Rice will be in to check you. Sound good?"

"Yes," Meredith says. "No interns. Tell Dr. Rice."

Bridget grins. "No interns. No problem."

Bridget works as quickly as she can, and Meredith endures two miserable contractions while she's hooked up to the monitor and waiting for the doctor to come in.

"Ready for a birthday party?" Dr. Rice asks cheerfully, letting herself into the room with a short knock.

"We're ready," Meredith says.

"Let's get you checked out then." She pokes and prods around Meredith's belly for a few minutes before she announces, "Head's down. She's ready to go. Just gonna quickly check your cervix, and we'll get a better idea of where we are, ok?"

She snaps on a glove and Meredith bends her legs at the knees and opens them. It's uncomfortable when she feels pressure and the doctor's fingers, but it's a relief to hear that she's already four centimeters dilated and eighty percent effaced.

"Your bag of water is bulging a little, but you don't want me to break it for you, do you?" she asks.

"No," Meredith says as she gets swept into another contraction. She groans and grips the sheets, rolling to her side until it's over.

"We talked about a natural birth," Dr. Rice says carefully. "Is that still the plan?"

"Yes," Meredith says. Before now, she has been pretty confident in her ability to tough it out. Now, she is keeping her options open, but she wants to at least try to go as long as she can without drugs.

"Ok," Dr. Rice replies. "Just let me know if you change your mind."

"Right now, I just want to get up. Can I get up?" she asks.

"Yeah, if you want to walk around, go for it. It usually helps to move things along more quickly. We're not expecting any problems, and the baby looks great, so I don't think you need to be continuously monitored at this point."

She doesn't feel like she can stay in this bed another minute and so as soon as the contraction ends, she and Derek set off on a walk around the labor and delivery floor. It's harder to walk around now, and the contractions are getting much more intense. She has to stop with each one, and she can't keep herself from moaning through them.

Derek holds her through each one, as the stabbing, squeezing pain washes over her entire body.

"You're doing so well," he whispers again and again as she burrows her head into his shoulder. "I'm proud of you."

She loses track of time and so she has no idea how long it's been since she's been admitted when a contraction grips her so hard that she leans over and clutches the railing along the wall for support. This one seems to go on longer than the others, and she bends her knees a little with the pain of it.

"Oh my God," she moans. She hears a splash and realizes that her feet are wet. It is not until the contraction finally ends that she understands that her water has broken.

"Oh my God, in the hallway," she groans. For a second, Derek looks stunned too, but he quickly snaps himself out of it. "Oh, there's amniotic fluid on your shoes," she says.

"Not a problem," Derek says. "Are you ok?"

"My water broke in the hallway," she says. "Crap, that's embarrassing."

"I'm sure it happens all the time," he assures her, and sure enough, a nurse is already hurrying over to check on them.

It's not Bridget, or anyone she knows, but this woman is asks her if she is all right and assures her that this does, indeed, happen all the time.

"Yeah, but it's on your shoes," she says helplessly to Derek.

"Don't worry about it, Meredith," he says calmly. "Occupational hazard of being a doctor, and a dad."

"Yeah, but you don't have a bag. Oh my God, I don't have a bag. It's at home," she says. Suddenly, it seems so stupid to not have packed two bags. She practically lives here; why wouldn't she have stuff here too?

"We'll get it," he assures her. "Someone can get it and bring it here. Do you feel like you need it right now?"

"It has her outfit in it. For going home," she says in a panicky voice. She and Zola had picked it out together. "She needs the outfit."

"Ok," he says soothingly. "We'll get the bag. I promise. Is there anything out of it that you want sooner than that?"

She groans as another contraction starts to build, quicker and more intense than the last one. The pain blots out any thought she may have had about her overnight bag and its contents, and she cries out loudly.

"Should we go back to your room?" Derek asks.

She nods. She doesn't know if she can stand up anymore, but the pressure in her pelvis makes lying down seem unthinkable too. He leads her back down the hallway, and Dr. Rice visits them just a few minutes after they get settled back into her room.

"So everything's moving along?" she asks cheerfully, walking in while Meredith is bent over the side of the bed, elbows pushed hard into the mattress. "I heard we had some nice, clear amniotic fluid a little while ago."

Meredith looks up and shoots Dr. Rice what she knows—or hopes, at least—is a death stare. Before this, Meredith usually appreciated this aspect of Dr. Rice's personality, and the reassurance it brings, but now she wants to punch her in the face. She can hear other women in other rooms, and so she knows that she is not the only one going through this, but still, a small part of her resents that Dr. Rice and Derek are still so happy.

Dr. Rice helps her into bed so she can check her again. It's horrible to lie there, but Dr. Rice tries to do everything she needs to do as quickly as possible, and Meredith only has to endure one contraction in bed. Dr. Rice helps her up and announces that she is now six centimeters dilated and one hundred percent effaced, and that they can expect the baby in just a few more hours.

It's good news, of course, but Meredith has no idea how she's going to get through a few more hours. She was sure, before now, that she did not want or need an epidural, but now it seems remarkably naïve. When she complains that she can't stand or sit, that nothing feels good, Bridget brings a birth ball for her to sit on.

They try using it for awhile, with Derek sitting on the edge of her bed and her sitting on the rubber ball. When contractions come, she leans into him and allows him to hug her and rub her back while she rests her head on his chest. The intensity of the pain shocks her, and though they never took a birthing class, Meredith is sure in these moments that there's no way it could have helped. This is too much to prepare for.

Between contractions, she sees Derek look up at the clock and then ask her tentatively, "You don't still want to try to observe Bailey's whipple, do you?"

"What?" she asks. "A whipple?"

"Yeah," he says. "Remember, she has one scheduled for eight o'clock? It's a little after nine. She's probably just getting to the good stuff."

"Why did they schedule a whipple so late?" she asks as the details come back to her. "She's going to be in there for hours."

"I don't know," he replies. "But you don't want to go watch, do you?"

"No," she says. "No."

"I didn't think so, but I just wanted to double check."

The hours tick by slowly, torturously, and she alternates between sitting backwards on a chair in the shower, letting the hot water rush over her, and sitting on the birth ball and letting Derek hold her.

With every contraction, she tells herself to just get through this one. Just this one contraction. It's the only way that the whole thing seems manageable anymore. And when Derek kneads her shoulders, and when both hands—the right _and _the left—are so strong on her back, it gives her strength.

She reminds herself over and over: She has almost drowned. He has been shot. They've both survived a plane crash. And his hand is strong on her back. She can do this. This is a good pain. This is pain that means something.

Every contraction drains her energy completely, and it seems like with each one, there's less and less time to recover before the next one starts. She tries to keep her eyes closed as much as possible, and she leans into Derek and lets him bear her weight.

"I love you," he says softly, pressing his lips to the top of her head. "You're doing great. It's almost over, I think."

"What do you think Zola's doing right now?" she asks.

"It's nearly midnight," he says. "She's probably sleeping. I _hope _she's sleeping."

"I want them to be close," she says, in the clearest voice she's been able to muster for hours. "Zola and the baby. Do you think they'll be close?"

"I think so," he says.

"What if they're not?" she asks. Emotion wells up in her throat and she can't stop herself from crying. "I want them to be sisters," she says.

"They are," he assures her.

"No, like real sisters. They should stick together."

"They will, Meredith."

"Zola has Sofia. I don't want the baby to feel left out. Zola should be a good sister."

"She will be. She'll have this kid's back. She's already a good sister."

"I want it to be different," she says, but when another contraction doubles down on her, it blurs her thoughts and drives itself to the center of her attention. She moans loudly, pulling on Derek's shirt, but there is no relief. It wears on and on, and just like that, it stops.

"I want Zola to be better than I was," she says, confessing a lingering fear that dates back to that surprise ultrasound a few months ago.

"You were a good sister," he whispers. She feels him pull her closer, and run his hands gently down her arms. "Lexie loved you."

"It took me too long to love her," she says quietly. "And now she's dead."

He pauses for a few seconds before he finally says, simply, "Everything is going to be ok."

She wipes her eyes, and grinds through a few more contractions in Derek's arms. A little while later, something shifts. A wave of heat washes over her. The intensity builds with the next contraction the same way it has been for hours, but when it would normally peak and then ebb away, it somehow hurts even more. The pain grips her, lights every nerve on fire, and squeezes her so sharply that she screams.

Her eyes fly open, and she wants to stand up, but her legs begin to tremble so much that she's not sure if she can. The next contraction bears down on her before she can catch her breath and recover from the last one, and she lets out a long, guttural moan.

She tries to use Derek's knee for leverage to stand up, but he helps her before she has to use much of her own power. She leans over the side of the bed, and her senses block out almost everything else but the pain.

Suddenly, Dr. Rice is there. Her hand on Meredith's back feels different from Derek's; it's softer, but somehow not as comforting.

"Sounds like we're just about there," she says.

"Something's wrong," she cries. This intensity, this barreling down, this unbelievable pain—it is much too much.

"Nothing's wrong," Dr. Rice says calmly. "You're doing great."

"Where's Derek?" she gasps.

"I'm right here," he says. He's on the other side of the bed now, reaching across the mattress to hold her hands.

"Something's wrong," she says again as another vicious contraction rips through her.

"Meredith, nothing's wrong," Dr. Rice says again. "You're in transition. This is normal. This is what transition feels like. Can I check you?"

She barely nods before she pushes her cheek into the mattress, squeezing hard on Derek's hands. She shrieks when she feels the doctor's fingers inside her.

"Ok, you're just about complete," Dr. Rice says. "Nine centimeters and stretchy. It won't be long. You're almost done."

Dr. Rice has a crap concept of time, Meredith thinks to herself, as this unbearable pain goes on and on. Derek tries to rub her back the same way he has been, but now, it feels like every nerve is hyperactive and she can't bear his touch. She tries to sit down on the birth ball again, but the pressure in her pelvis is too much to put any weight on it, and when she tries to stand up, her legs shake so badly that she feels like her knees will buckle.

Dr. Rice leaves, but Bridget stays in the room with them to try to help. Finally, when all else fails, she and Derek help Meredith on to the bed, where she rocks on her hands and knees per Bridget's suggestion. It's the only position that allows her to keep her grip on her sanity.

"Oh my God," she cries out as something shifts again.

"Do you feel like you have to push?" Bridget asks.

"I don't know," she moans. Most of the births she has seen, and all the literature she has read, have shown her that she will know when it's time. She trusts that something, instinct maybe, will tell her.

"Ok, that's ok," Bridget says.

"Wait," she says. The pressure quickly builds up to the point that it is nearly irresistible. "Wait, yeah, I have to push." She groans, fighting against what her body is telling her to do, and the words come out through clenched teeth: "I have to push _now_."

Things start to move quickly after this. Bridget asks Meredith not to push until the doctor returns to the room, and with each minute that passes, it takes a herculean effort to oblige. Meredith is sort of glad that she can barely open her eyes because the look on Derek's face right now would probably freak her out. Bridget breaks down the bed so that Meredith can sit almost completely upright with her back and feet supported.

"Can I push?" Meredith begs as soon as she sees Dr. Rice. She is not sure how much longer she can resist this urge. The contractions themselves aren't as bad anymore, but it's difficult to control her body, which feels like it's speeding ahead without her.

"Yes, go ahead and push with the next contraction," Dr. Rice says. "Just listen to your body."

Meredith bears down hard. It's the most instinctual, primal feeling she has ever had in her life; she is sure that she couldn't stop it if she wanted to. It feels better to push, to finally seize back some of the control that she has surrendered to the contractions for the past few hours.

In the months leading up to this moment, she has instructed Derek and the doctor that she did not want any counting during this part. Thankfully, he has remembered, and instead of incessantly counting to ten, he rubs her arms, presses a cool washcloth to her face and neck, and whispers gentle words of reassurance. He never leaves her side.

After a half hour of pushing, she kind of thought she would be done by now and so she's disappointed when Dr. Rice tells her that she can now see the top of the baby's head like it's some sort of accomplishment.

"That's it?" She can't hide her exasperation, and even though it's only been nine hours—much shorter than she thought it would be—she is exhausted.

Dr. Rice laughs. "You're doing great. She's low in the pelvis and she'll be here before you know it, so you just push when you need to."

She grunts and bears down with the next contraction, and feels her skin begin to burn.

"Oh my God," she moans. "It hurts."

"That's her head, Meredith," Dr. Rice says. "Push again and she'll be crowning."

But she doesn't have to be told; she can feel the baby's head coming down, stretching and splitting her.

"Do you see her head now?" Meredith asks breathlessly.

"I can see her," Derek says excitedly. "She's right there."

"If you reach down, you can feel her head if you want to," Dr. Rice says. "We're going to let her come out nice and slowly."

She reaches down and feels the hard top of a head between her legs. She pants and tries not to push hard as Derek rubs her thigh reassuringly. The burning sensation as the head moves forward and stays there for a few minutes consumes her. She cries out. She reaches for Derek, and his hand is right there, in hers.

"Just let her come, Meredith," Dr. Rice says. "She's right there. Deep breaths. Little push if you need to."

She grimaces and tries to move the baby forward just a little bit once, and then again. With the next contraction, she feels the head slide out with an intense searing that peaks with a scream.

"There's her head," Derek exclaims. "Good job, Meredith."

Before the doctor can tell her to do anything else, the last push comes instinctually, quick on the heels of the one before it, and her daughter is placed, warm and wet, on her chest.

"Oh my God," Meredith gasps, not in pain this time, but in shock and joy. Their daughter. Here. Finally.

"Happy birthday, honey," Dr. Rice exclaims, suctioning out the baby's nose and mouth as Bridget reaches in with warm towels. "Congratulations, you two!"

When the baby starts to cry, Meredith and Derek do too. Meredith is overwhelmed by how much she loves her already, how easily she loves her just as much as Zola, and how improbable it is that she is here at all. She cradles this little girl in her arms, staring at her in awe and disbelief, before she looks up at Derek, who wipes tears out of his eyes.

"Is she ok?" Meredith asks.

"She looks perfect," Dr. Rice says, examining the baby gently while she stays in Meredith's arms. "One-minute APGAR is nine."

"I love you," Derek says in a shaky voice, leaning over the baby to kiss her. "I'm so proud of you."

Meredith runs a finger gently down the baby's arm and tries to take in everything about her—her pink skin and delicate little mouth, alert eyes and dark, wispy hair.

"Welcome to the world, little bee," Meredith whispers. The pain, so intense just moments ago, is worth it a million times over to get to say these words.

"Derek, do you want to cut the cord?" Dr. Rice asks.

He nods and takes the scissors she is holding out for him, snipping between the clamps.

Bridget comes over with matching ID bands for all three of them, and a blanket. After fastening the bands to all of their wrists, she says, "Meredith, if you want to take that gown off, you can hold her and help her regulate her body temperature. We can cover you both."

Derek helps her maneuver so that their baby girl is resting skin to skin on Meredith's chest. She whimpers a little, and then settles against her mother. Derek snaps picture after picture on his phone as Meredith runs a palm over her the baby's head and closes her own eyes in relief.

They recline the bed a little and let Meredith hold the baby like this for awhile, long after the placenta is delivered and she is cleaned up. She never wants to let her go. This little girl is so peaceful, and this moment, with Derek resting his head on the pillow next to her as he takes in everything about this baby, is so perfect.

The doctor has left, but Bridget is still there when the baby starts to squirm a little on Meredith's chest. She opens her mouth wide and sticks out her tongue.

"Are you hungry?" Meredith asks softly, rubbing her cheek with the pad of her index finger.

"She knows what to do," Bridget says. "She'll figure it out."

Sure enough, a minute or two later, the baby has found Meredith's breast on her own. She latches on with minimal assistance, and once they're confident that she is on the right track, Bridget leaves the three of them alone. The baby stays like this, lying on top of Meredith to nurse intermittently for almost an hour.

It's nearly 2:30 in the morning when Derek finally holds his daughter for the first time. Meredith was pretty sure that she was done crying for the night, but when she eases the sleepy baby into Derek's arms, her eyes fill with tears again. He kisses his daughter's forehead, and reclines back into the armchair next to Meredith's bed.

"Hi, baby," he murmurs.

He looks up at Meredith with the biggest, proudest smile on his face. It's a smile that she hasn't seen on him since another late night in a hospital room not too far from this one, when he danced with another sleepy baby in his arms.

She cannot wait for tomorrow, for Zola to meet this baby, this little sister for whom she has waited so long.

"Are we sure on her name?" Derek asks.

The past and the future converge and overwhelm her as she nods and wipes tears out of her eyes.

"Caroline."

* * *

After a few hours of intermittent sleep, Derek wakes up to a text from Cristina letting him know that she is going to bring Zola to the hospital at around eight o'clock. He had spoken to her briefly in the middle of the night, just to let her know that the baby had been born and everyone is healthy, but they haven't told Zola yet.

It's nearly eight now, so he leaves Meredith, who is still sleeping, to meet Cristina and Zola in the lobby. His mind is in this weird place, as an adrenaline rush competes with exhaustion for dominance. In truth, he doesn't feel that differently than he would the morning after a long, improbably successful surgery, except that his happiness is magnified about a million times.

Cristina and Zola are right on time. They walk through the front door hand in hand, until Zola sees him and then she darts forward towards him on her own. Zola looks remarkably well put together, with her hair pulled back into neat pigtails and wearing what he knows to be one of her favorite outfits. He, on the other hand, is still in yesterday's scrubs and needs a large cup of coffee, a shower, and a shave.

"Daddy!" she cries happily, wrapping her arms around his legs. Zola is used to occasionally spending the night with people other than her parents. She knows that sometimes they have to work at the hospital at night, and so she takes separations like these in stride, though she is always happy to see her parents when they are over.

"Hi, Zo," he says. Kneeling down, he wraps her in his arms and kisses her on the cheek. "Did you have fun with Cristina?"

"I ate candy!" Zola brags.

"Wow, lucky girl!" he says as Cristina shrugs and hands him Zola's bag and Meredith's hospital bag. "Guess what? I have another lucky surprise for you."

"What?"

"Baby Sister came last night."

Zola gasps. "She did?"

"Yes, she did," he says, grinning at her reaction. "She's upstairs waiting to see you!"

"So everything's ok?" Cristina asks.

"Everything's great," Derek assures her. "Seven pounds, nine ounces. Twenty inches long. And Meredith's doing fine too. Do you want to come up and see her?"

Cristina shakes her head. "You guys go. Be a family. I'll come up later."

"You're sure?" he asks. He knows Meredith would love to see her, even though she is exhausted.

"Yeah," Cristina replies with a smile, and a hug that takes him aback. "Congratulations."

They say goodbye to Cristina and take the elevator upstairs. When they get to the maternity ward, he hoists Zola up onto his hip and holds her in front of the glass window that looks into the nursery.

"These are all mine?" Zola asks, going wide-eyed at the twenty or so babies in bassinettes in front of her.

"No," Derek laughs. "Just one baby, remember?"

Caroline is in the second row, third from the left, and he tries to point her out to Zola, but it's hard for her to follow his finger to the right baby. He can't really describe her to Zola because all of the newborns are wrapped in white blankets and look pretty similar, and it's not like Zola can read the sign in Caroline's bassinette that says "I'm a girl! My name is Caroline Grey Shepherd."

Finally, one of the neonatal nurses catches his eye and waves at Zola. She moves Caroline's bassinette closer to the window, and then picks her up so Zola can get a better look.

"That's her," Derek finally says.

Zola presses her hands and forehead against the glass and says, "Hi, Baby Sister."

"We're going to call her Caroline, Zo," Derek says.

"Caroline?" she asks.

"Yeah. Want to bring her in to see Mommy?"

A few hand gestures is all it takes for the nurse to wheel Caroline out of the nursery and over to them. Zola leans out of Derek's arms almost entirely, getting so close to the baby's face that their noses are just inches apart.

"Hi," she says again, and she reaches both arms in to touch the baby. Caroline stares up at her and blinks. "I can hold her too?"

"You can, as soon as we see Mama." He turns to the nurse, and asks, "Can we take her to my wife's room?"

The nurse quickly checks that their bracelets match and soon they're on their way. He guides the bassinette down the hall, and Zola holds on to it too, gripping one of the legs and pushing it down the hall with him.

Meredith is still sleeping when they get back to her room. He sets both Meredith's bag and Zola's bag on the floor, and before he can tell Zola not to, she stands next to the bed, inches away from Meredith's face, and whispers, "Mama!"

Meredith stirs a little. Zola taps her on the shoulder. "Mama, my baby sister is here!"

He and Meredith haven't been shy about the biology of how Caroline would get here, and so he loves that Zola is so convinced that Meredith will be surprised when she wakes up to find that the baby is here with them.

Meredith opens her eyes, reaching for Zola. "Hi, baby," she says in a sleepy voice. "I missed you!"

"Mommy, my baby sister is right there!" Zola says again, pointing to the bassinette.

"I know, Lovebug," Meredith says. "Are you excited?"

Zola leans onto the bed a little, on her tip toes to get closer to Meredith.

"Her name is Caroline!"

"You seem excited," Meredith laughs. She kisses her forehead, and moves over to make some room for Zola on the bed. "Do you want to come up?"

"Daddy said I can hold her," Zola says, like she must choose between snuggling with Meredith or with the baby.

"You can hold her on the bed," Meredith says, and Zola climbs up.

"Do you want to nurse her first?" Derek asks. He scoops Caroline out of her bassinette and holds her close. The nurses have kept her swaddled for a few hours but she is still curled up in a ball with her legs drawn up pretty close to her stomach. She stretches a little but doesn't open her eyes.

Meredith shakes her head. "If she's not crying, let Zola hold her."

She helps position Zola's arms so that she's ready to accept the baby, and she wraps one arm around Zola so she can help her support Caroline's head even more.

He places the baby in Zola's arms. Zola wraps her arms around Caroline, and Meredith wraps her arms around Zola. Caroline's head wobbles a little, and she wakes up in earnest and starts to cry while Meredith tries to adjust her in Zola's arms.

"Don't cry," Zola says. She looks alarmed at first, but then she says again, so gently, "Don't cry, Caroline."

Derek steps in to help Meredith get her settled. He unwraps the baby a little, loosening the blanket so she can squirm a bit more easily, and he tries to maneuver both Zola and Caroline into a more comfortable position while Meredith supports Zola's back and Caroline's head. Meanwhile, Zola touches her sister's face, and then her hair.

"Soft," Meredith reminds her, but Zola doesn't need reminding. She's a natural.

"Don't cry, Caroline," Zola says again, and with her free hand, she pats Caroline's stomach over her blankets. After a moment or two, Caroline settles down. She whimpers and grunts a little, and then looks up at Zola.

Zola stares down at Caroline in her arms, and then looks up at Derek and beams. He can tell that she is so proud, so much so that she can't articulate it to him.

"What do you think, Zo?" he asks. "Is she as good as you thought?"

Zola nods, and when she does, he watches Meredith's eyes fill with tears. He has never felt so lucky, so overwhelmed with happiness, as he does now.

He is in love with these girls.

* * *

When they get home from the hospital two days later, Zola is ready for them. She has had a few different people watching her over the past few days, and this lack of continuity lets Meredith know that display—this must have been Zola's idea.

When she walks in the front door, an entire wall of the living room is covered with Zola's drawings. She is just about three years old, so she is still mostly scribbling at this point, but still. The bright colors and the sweet gesture make Meredith smile. It feels a little strange for Zola to be at the hospital and she and Derek not to be, and she can't wait for Arizona to bring her home from daycare later.

For now, though, she and Derek sit down on the couch, with Caroline sleeping in her car seat on the coffee table in front of them. After she screams when they try to dress her in the outfit she and Zola had picked out for her, Caroline winds up coming home in a soft white t-shirt, booties, and a diaper, covered lightly with a pink blanket. She still looks cute though, and Meredith wonders why she cared so much about the outfit in the first place.

Meredith settles back into Derek's arms and he kisses her temple. They stare at Caroline for a few minutes, but she is sound asleep and pays them no attention.

"What now?" Meredith asks Derek with a grin.

She winds up spending most of the day in bed with Caroline. It's nothing compared to labor, but she still feels so uncomfortable. Her boobs feel like they weigh about a million pounds, and she is too sore from the delivery to sit up for very long, so Derek uses extra pillows to help her prop herself on her side. This way, she and Caroline can lie down and nurse—which Caroline wants to do seemingly all the time—and Meredith just has to support her head with one hand. Derek crawls into bed with them, and the three of them doze off between feedings for the rest of the morning and early afternoon. She feels the bed shift a few times when he gets up to change Caroline's diaper, and when he brings her back. Once he leaves and returns with lunch on a tray for her, and he holds the baby while she eats, but then they all nap again for another hour. She is exhausted, and she wonders if maybe sleeping during the day is actually ironically making her more tired, but she can't help it.

She and the baby are just waking up from a nap and are sitting on the couch, just for a change of scenery, when the front door opens and Zola bounds in with Arizona behind her.

"Mama!" Zola cries happily, completely ignoring Derek who has gotten up off one of the chairs to take Zola's stuff from Arizona.

"Hi, Zozo."

Zola scrambles up onto the couch, and leans in closely, her face just inches away from Caroline's. She tries to hug her, but Meredith worries that Zola will be overzealous and jostle her or squeeze her too hard. Arizona leaves with a reminder to call if they need anything, but Meredith barely hears her as she tries to handle both girls at once.

Zola wants to be practically on top of the baby. She is so excited that Caroline is finally home, peppering Meredith and Derek with questions and insisting that Caroline needs a tour of the house. She is disappointed that they aren't going on a walk to the lake _right now _and that she can't hold Caroline when she fusses and wants to nurse.

Meredith supposes that Caroline will have to get used to some manhandling from Zola, but right now, it makes everything a little bit more difficult. She feels like Caroline is pretty much attached to her, and when Zola wants to be attached to Caroline and then, when she realizes that's not possible, to Meredith, it feels overwhelming. She actually puts a hand gently on Zola's chest to help her keep some distance, but without this hand, she can't help Caroline get a good latch.

"Zo, why don't you come sit with me?" Derek asks, but Zola wants no part of him.

"I want Mommy."

Meredith needs both hands to nurse Caroline in a seated position and so there are no more hands to give Zola. She shoots Derek a clear 'help me' look, and he asks Zola if she wants to help make dinner. She says no, but he persists.

"Come on, are you hungry?" he asks. He gets up and moves into kitchen, hoping that she will follow him, but when she doesn't, he comes back to the couch. "Come on, Zo."

"No," she shrieks when Derek picks her up, loud enough to the point that it startles Caroline into tears.

Meredith doesn't know which daughter to look to first as both of their cries drown everything else out.

"I've got her," Derek assures Meredith. Zola squirms in his arms, but he says, "If you want to feed Caroline in the bedroom, I can take Zo."

Later that night, they trade off watching Caroline so they can both put Zola to bed. By the time they get Zola to sleep, Meredith is stressed out. Zola has always been active, but now that Caroline is home, it feels like there is so much going on in this house.

Back in her and Derek's bedroom, she finds him sitting up in bed with Caroline curled in his arms.

"She's asleep," Meredith says in relief. Laying a hand on Derek's shoulder, she peers down at Caroline.

"She's asleep too," Derek says. "Why don't you go take a shower? She's not going to need to eat again for a little while yet. We're ok here."

The hot water and the time alone work wonders to soothe her fried nerves. When she gets out of the shower a little while later to find that Caroline is still sleeping in his arms, she smiles.

"How's my baby?"

"She's perfect. How are you feeling?"

Meredith sighs and sits down on her side of the bed, next to Derek and the baby.

"Better."

"Good," he says. "That's good."

She watches him stare at the baby for a few moments before he looks up. "My mom asked if it would be ok to come out here next week for a few days. Just for a few days," he assures her.

She has known this was coming. Ever since Derek and Liz's surgeries, she has known that his family was not going to accept being kept away any longer, and if she's being realistic, she also knows that they will not hesitate to turn up the guilt trip and play the 'you asked us to save Derek and now you don't want us there?' card.

She has tried to prepare herself for an onslaught of Shepherds for months, so that when it inevitably happened, she would feel less caught off guard. She fully expected to feel anxious and overwhelmed by the request, but now, it feels a little different. She laughs a little and nods. "I think we might need the help."

"She is also excited that we named the baby after her. She knows we really didn't," he says when he notices her expression, stopping her before she can say anything. "But it's kind of an added bonus that we killed two birds with one stone there. For me, at least."

"Well, we were going for efficiency."

She watches him with their daughter and imagines the life the four of them will have together.

"I wish Lexie were here," she says quietly, knowing that the time will come—when the girls are older—to remind Zola about her, and to explain to Caroline who her name comes from.

"Me too."

"I shouldn't be annoyed with Zola," she says. "She just loves her sister, that's all."

"We can still give her some boundaries though," he says.

Caroline stirs in his arms, stretches, and opens her mouth wide. She sticks out her tongue and, finding nothing with Derek, brings a tiny fist up to her mouth and sucks on it.

Meredith glances at the clock on the nightstand. She's early this time, short of the two hours she has read to expect between feedings, but she has also been told to feed her whenever it looks like she's hungry. It's intense, the pace of it and this total and complete dependence.

"Do you want to take her?" Derek asks.

"Yeah, before she starts crying. Just hold on for a second."

She lies down on her side, adjusting her head so her damp hair is behind on the pillow. It still hurts to sit up for too long, and, when it takes at least forty minutes to feed her, this is the easiest way to do it, at least for now.

"Can you put her next to me?" she asks, lifting her shirt up.

Derek gently eases the baby out of his arms and onto the bed, close to Meredith. She helps her latch, and Caroline eats greedily with Meredith's hand supporting her head.

"Hi, bee," she murmurs softly. The nickname has been tossed around, slowly evolving from 'baby sister,' to 'baby,' to 'bee.' Derek always smiles when she uses it, saying that 'Z and B' sounds like a weird folk duo or else a tricky surgical procedure. She wondered if the nickname would stick once they finally agreed on a real name, but so far, it seems like maybe it will.

Caroline's dark blue eyes flutter closed in bliss, but Meredith already knows that she's not finished eating. She rubs the sole of Caroline's foot to wake her up, and smiles when her eyes open again.

"You're beautiful," Derek says.

She scoffs. "You're just saying that because my boobs grew about three sizes in the past three days."

"Well I'm certainly not complaining about that," he says with a smirk. "But you are."

She stares in disbelief at this perfect baby in their bed. "We did it," she says.

Derek shakes his head. "You did it."

It's only the first day. And even though there's a long way to go to raise these girls and to wade through this grief, the flip side is that there is so much time to revel in this joy.

* * *

**A/N: Sorry for the longer wait between chapters this time! This required a lot of research—my Google search history is ridiculous right now—and re-writing, but I hope you feel like it was worth it for the longer chapter and the birth of the baby. Of course, I'd love to hear your thoughts, especially on her name and nickname. I really don't know how it's going to go on the show this week—boy or girl—but I think there's so much they could do with the story either way and I'm just excited to find out! What do you guys think? Thank you so much to those of you who have taken the time to review, favorite, and/or follow. It definitely means a lot and keeps me going!**


	6. Chapter 6

_I will hold on with all of my might_

_Just promise me we'll be alright_

_The ghosts that we knew made us black and all blue_

_But we'll live a long life_

One Saturday, when Caroline is three weeks old, Derek gets called into the hospital at five in the morning for an emergency follow-up surgery on his patient from the previous day. Meredith is already awake, feeding Caroline in bed, when he gets the page. Two minutes into the ensuing phone call, it is clear that he can't just talk someone else through what the next steps should be from the comfort of their home. They actually need him. He won't know how bad it'll is until he gets in, so he cannot promise when he will be home.

"You could always call somebody if you need a hand," he says as he quickly dresses. "Callie and Arizona offered to take Zola anytime."

Meredith shakes her head, and grimaces as she adjusts Caroline in her arms. Three weeks of near constant nursing is taking its toll on her body. Even though she is exhausted—they both are—she doesn't want to outsource one kid as soon as the parent-child ratio is no longer in her favor. While she is sure that Zola would love to play with Sofia, she also does not want Zola to feel like she is not supposed to be home with them.

"We have to figure out handling both of them at once by ourselves at some point," she says. "I'm sure we'll be ok. Go save somebody's life."

"Ok," he nods. He leans down and kisses her, and then kisses Caroline's head. "Bye, Bee. Tell Zo I'll see her later."

"I will," she says. She lifts Caroline's tiny fist and waves. "Bye, Daddy."

As soon as Derek leaves, Meredith realizes that she is very likely up for the day, but when Caroline finishes eating and Zola still isn't awake, she gets back in bed and closes her eyes anyway. Sure enough, about a half hour after Caroline falls asleep in her bassinette, Zola lets herself into Meredith and Derek's bedroom.

"Hi, Mama," she says sleepily. Meredith opens one eye and watches Zola crawl into bed with her, bringing her favorite giraffe and two other stuffed animals with her.

Meredith wraps her arms around Zola, and she lies down with her. Maybe she can get Zola to snooze for a few more minutes, or at least play quietly in bed while she takes a light nap.

She groans a little at the pressure of Zola's hand on her hip as Zola uses her for leverage and peeks over at Derek's side of the bed. "Where's Daddy?" she asks.

"He's at the hospital," Meredith says.

"Me too?"

Derek went back to work two weeks ago, and when he did, they decided to keep bringing Zola to daycare so as to disrupt her routine as little as possible and to allow Meredith to recover and devote all of her time to Caroline.

"Not today," Meredith says. She opens her eyes—both of them—now, knowing that Zola is not going to go back to sleep. "It's the weekend. So can you help me take care of Caroline today?"

Zola nods, and glances eagerly at Caroline's bassinette in the corner of the room. "Right now?"

"Well, she's sleeping right now, but later. Do you want some breakfast?"

They take the baby monitor downstairs and Meredith fixes Zola a small bowl of cereal, but Zola barely gets through her breakfast before Caroline's cries crackle over the monitor.

"I can have more?" Zola asks as she finishes the last bite of her Cheerios and Meredith is already halfway up the steps.

"As soon as I come back down," Meredith assures her.

Upstairs, Caroline has squirmed her way halfway out of her swaddle, and continues to fuss even when Meredith unwraps and cuddles her.

"Oh, Caroline, you stink," Meredith says as she holds her up and sniffs. "No wonder you're upset. Let's get you changed."

She covers the bed with a blanket, and undresses Caroline so she can take off her dirty diaper. As soon as the air hits Caroline's bare legs and bottom, she starts to wail.

"You know," Meredith says, pulling a few wipes out of the container so she can clean the poop off her, "For a little baby, you can make a pretty big mess."

Even though Meredith goes as quickly as she can, Caroline still seems to think that she is taking too long. She screams as Meredith wipes her down, straps a new diaper on her, and snaps the legs of her onesie closed. She takes a second to try to settle Caroline down, and while the baby is happier now that she's warm, she is still cranky. Meredith is tempted to let her nurse right now, even if only to soothe her, but then she remembers that Zola is downstairs and she actually _is_ hungry.

"Let's go see your sister," Meredith coos at Caroline. "Want to go see Zo?" Caroline grunts and roots around for Meredith's nipple, knowing that it's close and that she can't get to it. "I know. In a minute, Bee."

Downstairs, Meredith sees Zola's guilty face first, and the Cheerios all over the kitchen counter and the floor second.

Meredith stops in her tracks and sighs. "Did you try to pour yourself?"

"Sorry, Mama," Zola says.

Caroline starts to cry again, wanting to be comforted, and Meredith resigns herself to leaving the mess on the floor for the foreseeable future. She walks into the kitchen, trying to avoid crushing the cereal on the floor, but can't get close enough to the counter without stepping in at least some of it.

"You got some in your bowl though, right?" Meredith asks, peering over the counter to take a look. The bowl is, in fact, overflowing and Meredith wonders if Zola has emptied the entire box by accident.

There's no other way than to step on the spilled Cheerios to get to Zola. Shifting a now screaming Caroline to one arm, she uses her free hand to scoop the extra cereal out of Zola's bowl.

"You need more milk," she sighs, and goes to the fridge to refill Zola's bowl. If she can just Zola situated, then she can nurse Caroline, and then later she can figure out how to get the kitchen back in order.

"Sorry, Mama," Zola says again. Her eyes fill with tears as Meredith pours the milk.

"Hey, it's ok," Meredith says, squeezing Zola's shoulder with her free hand, and mustering up her energy to give Zola a reassuring smile. She has to remind herself that Zola is still just a little girl herself, and that she does not mean to do this. "Accidents happen. Eat your breakfast, ok?"

She sits down on the couch with Caroline, and tries to get her to nurse. Caroline takes the breast at first, but screams and hiccups so that milk dribbles out of her mouth. On her next attempt, Caroline gets a bad latch and it hurts so badly that Meredith has to stick her pinky in Caroline's mouth to break it and try again. It takes a few minutes to get her to settle down enough to eat correctly, but once she finally does, the situation feels just a little bit easier to deal with.

"There you go," Meredith murmurs, settling back onto the couch. "Oh, you just wanted your mama, didn't you?"

Everything Meredith has read has told her that the constant nursing will let up after the first month. She hopes so, because if she does not focus entirely on getting Caroline to latch the right way, then the pain of trying to feed her is terrible, and she's not sure what else to do.

She knows to count on sitting here for the next forty minutes or so, and therefore the mess in the kitchen will have to wait. She can hear her cell phone ringing upstairs, but she knows there's no way she can get to it right now. When the house phone rings, Zola reaches over the kitchen counter and answers it. _When did she learn to do that?_ Meredith wonders.

"Hi," Zola says into the phone. The caller must be someone she knows, because she brightens and says "hi" again. "Yeah. My mama," she says, and slides off her chair to bring the phone to Meredith.

"Who is it?" Meredith asks, adjusting Caroline so that she can take the phone with one hand.

"Shane," Zola replies, and goes back to her cereal.

Ross lets her know that Derek will likely be in surgery until after lunch. He says that he has been told to ask if she needs anything.

"Are you offering to come watch my kids, Ross?" Meredith snaps. Granted, there had been a few rough patches, but so far they are doing fine and she can't help but be a little annoyed—however irrationally—with Derek for checking up on her.

"Uh," Ross stammers. "I was just…. Do you want me to, Dr. Grey?"

"I don't. Tell Dr. Shepherd that everything's fine, and we'll see him when he's finished."

She hangs up and leaves the cordless on the couch next to her. "We're doing good, right, Zo?"

Zola nods with a mouthful of cereal. "Caroline's hungry too, Mama?" she asks, watching them from the kitchen counter.

"She is, Lovebug," Meredith replies, realizing that she hasn't eaten herself yet. "How's the cereal?"

"Yum," Zola says as she takes another bite.

"Good. Smaller bites, ok?" Meredith says. The last thing she needs right now is for Zola to choke or puke.

When Zola finishes, she slides off her seat at the counter and carries her plastic bowl and spoon to the sink. Meredith cringes, and prays that she won't spill the leftover milk. Zola stands on her tip toes and pushes the bowl into the sink without a problem, crunching spilled Cheerios underneath her.

"Thank you for putting your bowl away, Zo. You're my big girl," she says when Zola joins her on the couch.

Zola takes Caroline's tiny foot in her hand and just holds it while Meredith continues to feed her. "What should we do today, Caroline?"

"How about a walk later?" Meredith offers.

"Caroline wants to do that too?" Zola asks.

Meredith smiles. "I think she would be ok with it."

"Can you read, Mama?" Zola asks, reaching under the coffee table for one of her books. Meredith figures out how to feed her and read to Zola at the same time. She still needs both hands to hold Caroline, but if Zola holds the book, Meredith can still read the words to her.

After three books, Caroline pulls off the breast, finally content. Meredith adjusts her shirt and then sits Caroline up and pats her back gently to coax a burp out of her.

"Good job!" Zola says when Caroline finally burps.

Meredith laughs. "Want to hold her while I clean up a little?"

Zola nods excitedly and forms her arms into a perfect cradle, a stance that she has perfected over the past three weeks.

"Sit back a little," Meredith says. "Put your back against the couch."

Once Zola does, she settles Caroline into her arms for her. "See, Caroline? Your big sister wants to hold you." She turns to Zola and reminds her, "I'll be right in the kitchen. If you have to go the bathroom, or you don't want to hold her anymore, just tell me and I'll come get her, ok?"

But Zola sits with Caroline for as long as it takes for Meredith to clean the Cheerios off the kitchen floor and load the dishwasher. Zola chats away to Caroline while Meredith works, pretending that Caroline responds to every question and can keep up her end of the conversation just as well as Zola can.

"How's she doing?" Meredith asks Zola once she's finished cleaning up.

"Good. We are going to the zoo," she announces.

"Oh, you are?" Meredith asks. "Ok. When are you going?"

"Right now."

"Oh," Meredith says. "Ok, well little girls should get dressed before they go to the zoo. Can we do that first?"

There isn't _really_ a problem with letting Zola wear her purple striped pajamas all day, especially because they're not actually going to the zoo, but it would be nice to get her dressed while she has the chance.

"We're not going to the zoo," Zola says. "We work at the zoo. I'm in charge of it."

"Oh, I see. Well should you get changed for work? Like how Daddy and I wear scrubs at work?"

"Oh!" Zola cries. "Yeah!"

"Ok, why don't you go pick out what you want to wear to work, and bring it into Caroline's room. We'll get dressed and then I'll take you to work."

Meredith takes Caroline upstairs, where she changes her into a fresh long-sleeved onesie and puts a new pair of socks on her. Zola bounds into Caroline's bedroom a few minutes later, holding a pair of mint green polka dot leggings, a pink t-shirt, and a white tutu skirt.

"I'm ready!"

"Did you get a fresh pair of underwear?" Meredith asks.

Zola drops her stuff on the floor and runs back down the hall, returning a moment later with a pair of panties in her hand.

"Ok, now you're ready!" Meredith says. "Can you show me how you get dressed like a big girl?"

She doesn't know how some other moms do it. It's so much easier to have two kids when one can get almost all the way undressed, and then dressed again with minimal assistance. Zola needs only to lean on Meredith to step into her tutu, and to accept some help with putting her shirt on.

"Good job, Zo! Now let's brush your teeth and you'll be ready to go."

Downstairs, a few minutes later, Meredith sits Caroline in her bouncy seat on the floor, and covers her legs with a receiving blanket. Zola brings down armload after armload of stuffed animals from her bedroom, dumping them in the center of the living room.

"Hey, Zo, before you start work, can I just do your hair?"

With Zola seated on the couch, Meredith gently combs her hair, and pulls it into two braided pigtails. As she works, Zola says, "I'm happy I'm home with you, Mama."

Even though she hasn't had a shower or gotten dressed herself yet, and even though it's only mid-morning and this day already feels like a marathon—this builds her up.

With a handful of Zola's hair in one hand, she kisses the top of her head. "I'm happy you are too, Lovebug."

In the living room, Zola plays "with" Caroline by essentially just playing _around_ her. She doesn't even want Meredith to really play with her, but if Meredith looks like she's not paying attention, Zola is quick to notice. She sets up all of her stuffed animals around the living room, and shows them to Caroline one by one. After showing Caroline her giraffe and her penguin, she squats down in front of Caroline's bouncy seat with her lion.

"Oh, Caroline, this is a lion. It goes 'ROAR!' But don't be scared; this one is nice."

Caroline stares at her without reacting at all, but Zola is undeterred. She shows her a zebra and an elephant next. When she finally shows Caroline a dog, Meredith laughs and wonders why this is Zola's only somewhat traditional stuffed animal. There isn't a bear in sight.

"Oh no, Mama!" Zola suddenly cries.

"What is it?" Meredith asks.

"My giraffe is sick! Caroline says!"

Meredith smiles—what will it be like when Caroline has opinions of her own?—but quickly changes her expression when Zola looks at her disapprovingly. Amusement does not fit into the seriousness of the game.

"Oh no!" she says instead, "Should we take him to the vet?"

"No, I am the vet. I be right back."

Zola dashes upstairs and returns with a scrub cap, a surgical mask, and a bag full of plastic physician instruments. She and Derek got her some scrub caps for Christmas, and, because Zola loves to play doctor so much, they occasionally sneak her a box of surgical masks from the supply closet since those aren't as durable as her other medical equipment. Meredith makes a mental note not to tell Cristina that her youngest cardio protégé is currently thoroughly enjoying a stint in veterinary medicine.

"Can you tie?" Zola asks, holding out the mask in one hand and the cap in the other.

"Which one first?"

"Hat."

Meredith ties Zola's scrub cap on, making sure her pigtails are tucked neatly inside, then helps her tie the mask onto her face. Both are way too big for her, but they work well enough, and Zola doesn't seem to mind.

Zola sets the giraffe on the coffee table, and then opens up her doctor's kit. She sets the plastic reflex hammer on Caroline's stomach.

"Is Caroline helping you in surgery today, Dr. Shepherd?" Meredith asks from her position on the couch.

"Yes, but she's a baby doctor," Zola says.

"Ok, well let me know if you need me to help too," Meredith says.

But Zola doesn't need any help. After a surprisingly short surgery that involves a lot of listening to the giraffe's heartbeat with her stethoscope and giving a lot of injections, Zola announces that the giraffe will survive.

"Oh, good," Meredith sighs in relief. "How about a snack?"

"Yeah, I'm hungry," Zola agrees.

"Well, saving lives is hard work."

Zola resumes checking all of her other animals, rearranging them on the living room floor before the game evolves into a sort of school experience. Meredith hears something about circle time and criss-cross applesauce while she rummages in the fridge for some cheese for Zola.

She is cutting up strawberries when Caroline starts to fuss again.

"Caroline's crying, Mama," Zola calls from the living room.

"I know, I can hear her," Meredith calls back. "I'll be right there."

By the time she gets to Caroline, however, Zola has calmed her down by herself. She has plucked Caroline's pacifier from the coffee table, coaxed it into her mouth, and is now gently smoothing Caroline's peach fuzz hair down on her head.

"Hi, Honeybee," Meredith coos at the baby. Caroline stares up at her, contentedly sucking on her pacifier. "Did Zola take care of you?"

Zola looks up at Meredith and smiles proudly, but never leaves Caroline's side. Meredith leans over and kisses the top of Zola's head. "Good job, big sister."

* * *

A few weeks later, Derek is about an hour away from leaving work when his pager beeps loudly against his hip. He finds a phone, and listens to Callie hurriedly explain that she is getting ready to scrub in on an emergency surgery—a compound femur fracture resulting from an MVC on I-90. He does not understand why she is paging him with this seemingly irrelevant information, so he asks if the patient needs a neuro consult too. She shakes him off.

"No, Sofia. Arizona is at a conference in San Francisco, and this surgery is going to take at least four hours. The girl who usually watches her on weeknights when we have to work late has a stomach virus, and daycare closes for the day at seven."

"Oh," Derek says. "Yeah, we can watch her."

"Are you sure?" Callie says anxiously. "You guys just had a baby."

"Callie, it's no problem. I'll get Sofia in about an hour when I pick up Zola."

Callie sighs. "Thank you, thank you, thank you. Ok, I have to go, but Edwards is on my service today. I'll have her get Sofia's car seat out of my car and get it to you."

"Ok," Derek replies. "We'll feed her dinner and you can just pick her up whenever."

When he goes up to daycare a little later that evening, and tells Zola and Sofia that they are both going to come home with him that day, Zola is absolutely thrilled. She has been itching to have Sofia come over, since she has spent so much time at Sofia's house and Sofia hasn't really come to them at all. But Sofia is not so sure.

"My mommy's not coming?" she asks.

"She is," Derek assures her. "But she just has a surgery to do first, so she asked if you could have dinner with Zola tonight and she would come get you at our house. Would that be ok?"

"I want my mommy," Sofia says helplessly.

"Sofia, you can come with my daddy," Zola says, tugging on her hand. She tries to comfort her but it comes out as more of a whine. Sofia starts to cry.

"Why is she crying?" Zola asks.

"She just wants her own mommy. Right, Sofia?"

"Uh huh," Sofia hiccups.

He wonders what he should do. If Sofia was his own kid, he would pick her up and comfort her without a second thought. But she's not his kid, and maybe him trying to hold her will make her even more upset.

It's strange that this has never happened before, that he and Meredith have never been asked to watch Sofia. But then he realizes that maybe they've never been asked because there used to be three of them, not two. Mark used to be here.

He remembers that awful day when they were sure they had lost Zola forever. Mark had offered to share Sofia with them. _It kinda works_, he had said. _No one gets too exhausted. You're not on every night. We can work you into the rotation._

But Sofia's gulping sobs indicate to him very clearly that she does not want him and Meredith worked into the rotation.

"Sofia, we can play at my house," Zola says. She seems a little indignant that Sofia is not excited, that she doesn't want to come with them. "Why is she still crying?" she asks her father.

Derek sighs. There's nothing else to do but pick up Sofia. They can't very well stand in the middle of the daycare until Callie finishes her surgery, and he is pretty sure that Sofia won't walk if he asks her to.

"It's ok, Sofia," he says, hoisting her up onto his hip and rubbing her back. "Your mommy is going to come get you in a little bit. But can you eat dinner with me and Zola while we're waiting?"

Sofia takes a hiccupping breath and nods.

He hasn't held Sofia since Mark's funeral. He sees her almost every day because she's Zola's best friend, but it's been over a year since he's held her. That day, he and Callie passed her back and forth for hours, wanting desperately to hold on to a piece of Mark, but somehow, he hasn't held her since then. She feels different now, bigger and more grown up. She's a solid reminder of how much time has passed without Mark.

It's not the same at all. Even though it feels kind of like deja vu as he carries her down the hall, with Zola holding his free hand, he keeps reminding himself that it's not the same. Sofia doesn't have absent parents, just parents who happen to be busy on this particular day.

Growing up, Derek loved having Mark practically live with them. With four very nosy, chatty sisters, he couldn't see a downside to having Mark around all the time. But as he got older, he noticed that it was strange that Mark spent so little time at his own house. He remembers asking his mother once. She had just sighed and said, "It takes a village, Derek."

When he thinks back, his own mother _must_ have had a problem with the way Mark's parents treated him. She worked, and there were five of them, and she was still so much more present in her children's lives than Mark's parents ever were in his. But she never said a word. She was always just quietly there. She always kept a place for Mark, always made enough food for eight instead of seven, always kept a fresh set of sheets on the trundle under Derek's bed.

It's not the same. If Mark had any say in the matter, he never would have left Sofia. Derek wishes that Mark was still in the rotation, that he could have come for his daughter at the end of the day himself. The sight of a Sloan sitting at the Shepherd family's dinner table that night gives Derek equal amounts of heartache and hope. And he promises to fill in when he's needed, to be part of Sofia's village, and to pull up a chair for her at his table for the rest of her life.

* * *

Meredith has been waiting for this for six weeks. After a month and a half at home with a newborn, she is dying to feel a little bit more like herself again. Since she took twelve weeks of maternity leave, she won't be operating for awhile longer, so this is the next best way she knows how.

They have a very impressive track record. She and Derek, that is. But never before has this required so much planning, or caused so much stress. By and large, for years, she and Derek made use of even the tiniest slivers of time and the most unconventional of places. But the first time after having a baby has required much more strategizing than she thought it would.

Now, she needs to time everything perfectly. He knows what tonight is, but unfortunately, he has already called to let her know that he'll be home a little late. It's just another in a series of complications that include getting both girls to sleep at the same time while still timing his arrival for just after she's fed Caroline. She has identified a window of opportunity for them—the house will be quiet, she will not be exhausted, and her body will cooperate and not give him an unintentional mouthful of breastmilk if he touches her—and they are rapidly approaching the end of it.

She has plans to make it special, plans that are as much for her as they are for him. Ordinarily, she would want a glass of wine to relax, but she can't drink, so she's left a negligee in the bathroom to change into later and that will have to do. It can't hurt to get into bed while she waits for him, but when she does, she is so exhausted that she doesn't even realize that she is falling asleep.

"Meredith," Derek whispers, shaking her awake.

She groans. _Has she been asleep?_ She opens her eyes to find him still in the clothes he wore to work, leaning over her side of the bed.

"Hey," he says. He smiles, but she wrinkles her nose in disappointment. This already is so _not_ going the way she wanted it to go. She was hoping to be more ready, more put together, for him.

"Hi," she says, propping herself up. "What time is it?"

"A little after nine. I'm sorry I'm so late," he says. He leans in to kiss her. "How are the girls?"

"Everybody's good," she replies. "It's after nine already?"

"Almost 9:30," he admits. "I'm really sorry."

She waves him off. "Caroline's not awake?" she asks in disbelief.

"She's not," he says, peeking over at the bassinet in the corner of the room. "Where is she?"

"She's in her crib."

"Really?"

They've been talking about trying to get her used to her crib, if not at night, then maybe for a nap or two each day so that eventually she can sleep in her own room. They haven't tried it yet but when Caroline fell asleep at seven, and Meredith thought that Derek would be home by 7:30, she decided to give it a shot.

"Well, she's in her moses basket and the moses basket is in the crib," Meredith admits. "But she's asleep."

"She is," he says, taking a seat at the edge of the bed. "And we—" he kisses her, "—are alone in our bedroom for the first time in six weeks."

"We are." She smiles, and runs her hand through his hair until she cups the back of his head to bring him closer.

"Do you still want to?" he asks.

And even though she feels a long way from sexy at the moment, in her wrinkled pajamas and nursing bra, with sleep still in her eyes, she can't stop herself from saying, "Oh, yes."

He is so careful with her, the way he pulls the covers gently off of her, kicks off his shoes, and leans over her a little more. He lets her push his jacket off his shoulders and lift his shirt over his head before he finally climbs entirely on the bed next to her.

"Is this ok?" he asks as he kisses her, moving his mouth from her lips to her neck and his hands from her cheek to her arms. His hands aren't where she needs them most, but his skin feels good on hers, and he has never had a problem getting her to say yes.

Her mind is struggling to stay in the moment though. It's an issue she has never had before when he touches her, but right now, she keeps thinking that it's already after nine o'clock. He is doing everything he can to relax her, everything that usually spirals her into absolute bliss, but she's still holding on and can't let herself surrender. She knows that baby better than anyone, and instinct, along with her full breasts telling her that the baby is going to need to nurse soon, let her know that this is going to be interrupted very shortly.

Sure enough, he hasn't even gotten her shirt off when Caroline starts to cry down the hall, making it abundantly clear that the window of opportunity she has so carefully carved out has passed.

Derek is still awake when she returns to their bedroom a little while later, but she feels so unlike herself that she doesn't know how to pick up where they left off. Her body has been completely taken over, and while she does love that she is able to do this for their daughter, a tiny part of her resents that she does not feel sexy at all. She feels ridiculous for even taking the negligee out of the drawer in the first place when her nursing bras are pretty much a necessity at this point. But she wonders whether, if they keep going and push through it, she can shake off feeling frumpy and disjointed.

"She's asleep again," Meredith sighs, and crawls into bed with him.

"Want to get some sleep too?" he offers. "Maybe tonight is not the night."

"We could," she says. But she melts when he wraps his arms around her and kisses the top of her head, and, as good as sleep sounds, she still wants to try. More than that, she still wants _them_ back, and she worries about what it might mean if they put this off. She sits up a little and says, "But we should be good for at least two uninterrupted hours."

"We don't have to," he assures her. "We have all the time in the world."

She shakes her head, and kisses him. "I want to."

He's cautious, asking her before he puts any weight on her or takes her clothes off or touches her breasts, and she moans "yes" over and over every time he asks if what he is doing is ok, if it feels good.

It _does_ feels good, but the best thing is just having each other's undivided attention for the first time in weeks. Their babies are asleep, his patients are taken care of, and right now, her husband is worshipping her. For the first time in weeks, she feels like she might be getting herself back. This _all_ feels good.

He pulls her pants down around her ankles and off, and then dips his hand into her underwear and repeats the action. The combination of his lips on hers, and his hands on her hips as he pulls her closer, makes every nerve in her body thrum. She slips her hands into the waistband of his pants, undressing him too, and, once he's naked, she wraps her hand around him. She grins when his breath catches in his throat.

"Are you ok?" he asks breathlessly. He is kneeling on the mattress, settled between her legs. He strokes the inside of her thigh and pets her, readying her, with his other hand as he leans forward and kisses her.

She nods, and arches up into him. Her other hand runs gently down his side, feeling the hard muscles of his obliques. "Derek," she says, "Please."

He slowly pushes into her, and suddenly, she gasps. It feels different than it did before, uncomfortable and unexpected and not like them at all. He stops immediately. "You're not ok," he says, looking kind of horrified and guilty. "We should stop."

She shakes her head. Pain or no pain, she loves him, and wants to get back to normal, more than anything. If powering through is what it's going to take, then power through they will.

"Are you sure?" he asks.

"Yes," she says. "I want to. Let's just take it slow," she says.

He smiles reassuringly, though he still looks uncertain. "I can take it incredibly slow."

They take their time, but she can't hide the discomfort she feels, and it throws both of them off. They've done slow plenty of times. In fact, he enjoys drawing it out, getting to know every inch of her body and making her moan before he finally gets her off. But it's always been a tortuously pleasurable option, never a physical necessity. Before tonight, she has only ever tried to speed him up, or at least to reciprocate, to give as good as she gets—but she can't do any of that right now.

It's a far cry from what they're both used to: easy and natural and loud and ecstatic. It's the first time that sex with Derek Shepherd hasn't blown her mind and made her toes curl and her legs shake. And right now, it's just one more thing that makes her feel like a part of her has been lost.

Afterward, she doesn't know what to say. It's not like the sex was awful, but the hesitation and the pain are completely disconcerting. She suspects he feels the same way. They lie together under the covers. She rests her head on his shoulder and her hand on his chest, and he keeps his arm wrapped tightly around her, stroking her skin gently with the tips of his fingers.

"I'm sorry," he says softly after a few moments of silence.

"Why?" His apology almost makes her feel worse. They've never had to apologize after sex before.

"Maybe we should have waited a little longer," he says.

"Maybe," she replies. "But I wanted you."

He kisses the top of her head. "I wanted you too. I love you."

She presses her lips to his chest, and stares off into space for a few moments. Despite everything, the peace and safety and love she feels when she's wrapped in his arms is still important. She tries not to let that go while she thinks of what more there is to say besides, "I love you too."

Finally, he sighs. "Well," he says matter-of-factly. "Look at it this way. To everyone else in the world, it must have seemed like some sort of cosmic injustice that this has never happened to us before, so now we've evened it out. We may have been the only ones who got mind-blowing every time. It wasn't fair to the rest of the world. So this could technically be considered a public service."

She snorts an appreciative laugh, and suddenly, she feels ok about the whole thing, like it might get better. "A public service?"

"I think so," he says.

She nuzzles closer to him, and runs her hand lightly down his chest. "Mind-blowing or not," she says, "I am happy you're in my bed tonight. I'd still rather be with you than with anyone else."

* * *

Zola loves Caroline. _Loves_ her.

Wants to be with her all the time, knows how to soothe her, demands that she get to show her off to everyone she meets. Obsessed.

And the only thing that surprises Meredith about it is that she is surprised. She's not sure why, exactly, because Zola's excitement when she was pregnant was a pretty good indicator of what to expect. Meredith kind of thought that once Caroline was born, and Zola realized that she was going to cry and poop and puke and demand as much attention as she does, that the attraction would wear off. But it hasn't.

Still, when Meredith asks Zola over breakfast if she wants to spend some time together, just the two of them, Zola is thrilled. Derek has the day off, and Caroline is old enough that Meredith feels comfortable leaving her for a few hours—and Zola deserves this.

"Just me and Mama?" Zola asks.

Meredith smiles. "Just me and you."

Zola turns to Derek, who is sitting next to her at the dining room table with Caroline in his arms, and asks. "Caroline will come too?"

Derek grins. "You want Caroline, but not Daddy?"

Zola wrinkles her nose. "Only girls."

"Oh, I see," he says, feigning hurt.

"I think Caroline is going to stay home with Daddy today, Zo," Meredith says. She could bring Caroline if she wanted to, but she hasn't really ventured out with both of them yet, and it seems kind of pointless to leave Derek at home alone. Plus, even though Zola usually doesn't mind, Meredith does feel a little guilty about not being able to give her as much time as she used to.

She settles on taking Zola to Seattle Center that morning. Seattle Center—home of the Space Needle, and numerous museums, arts centers, and green spaces—is close enough that she can get home to Caroline if she needs to, fun enough so that Zola will feel like this is a treat, and everyday enough that Derek won't feel like he's missing out on a major event.

It's unusually warm for early September, and a rare sunny day, so Meredith puts on a pair of long shorts and dresses Zola in shorts as well. She packs a bathing suit and a towel for Zola and they take the ferryboat across the Sound.

When they get to Seattle Center, she changes Zola into her bathing suit in the car first. She wants to take Zola to the International Fountain, a huge structure constantly and artfully shooting jets of water into the air, and then out for ice cream. She's nervous about leaving Caroline because they have never given her a bottle before, and so while she has some ideas for what they might do after that, she doesn't want to let Zola know in case those plans need to be cut short.

On the way to the International Fountain, they pass the ticket office and gift shop for the Ride the Ducks tour ticket office and gift shop. Upon seeing all the ducks in the window, Zola asks, "Can we go in there, Mama?"

They've just spent about a half hour on the ferry, so Meredith has no desire to get into one of the amphibious vehicles and take a water tour of the city. Fortunately, Zola doesn't seem to realize what it actually is; she just wants to look at the duck merchandise.

The place is stuffed with t-shirts, towels, tiny Space Needle figurines, and about a million variations duck-inspired keychains, mugs, postcards, pens, buttons, and other junk that is meant for overeager tourists.

Zola is mesmerized by a display of rubber ducks. They've got plenty of traditional yellow ducks in all sizes, and they also have a lot of rubber ducks in various costumes—princesses, cowboys, superheroes, just about every occupation, and even ducks dressed as other animals. Meredith isn't sure whether it's just the mass of yellow, or if it's all the variety within it, but Zola just stands there and stares.

"Can I have one?" she finally asks hopefully.

Zola never really asks for anything, and so Meredith sees no harm in spoiling her a little bit on occasion. She checks the price sticker on the bottom of one of the ducks, and it's only a few dollars, so why not?

"Ok, let's pick one," Meredith agrees.

Zola's face lights up, but then she looks overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the choice in front of her. She looks like she doesn't know where to start, so Meredith starts pulling ducks off the shelf and suggesting them to Zola.

Zola refuses the chef, the cowboy, the giraffe, the princess, and the pink duck before she finally nods excitedly and reaches out her hands for the girl superhero. Meredith doesn't really worry so much about Zola wanting to be a girly girl from time to time, but she can't help but feel a little bit satisfied that Zola has chosen this particular toy.

"Should we go pay for it?" Meredith asks.

Zola nods, clutching the toy in both hands. "But, Mama, Caroline needs one too!"

Meredith grins, and hopes with everything she has in her that it will stay this way for the rest of her daughters' lives, that Zola will never forget about Caroline or leave her behind.

Zola doesn't see it this way—and, frankly, Meredith doesn't want her to because this is _her_ burden to bear—but Zola and Caroline feel a little bit like a second chance. And it doesn't come as a surprise to her at all that Zola is a better person than she is.

"You're right," Meredith replies, a little surprised to feel like there's something caught in her throat when she speaks. "Caroline needs one too. Which one do you think she would like?"

Zola takes her time, but ultimately can't decide between a baby duck complete with pacifier and bonnet, and a doctor duck in a stethoscope and scrubs that somehow escaped both of their notice the first time around. Meredith buys both.

"How about you share the doctor one?" Meredith asks. "We can keep them in the tub with your other duckies."

"Ok," Zola nods. "We can share it."

"Should we go take the ducks to the water?" Meredith asks.

They pay for the toys, and make their way toward the International Fountain. Zola holds her superhero duck in her left hand, and clasps Meredith's hand with her right.

"Hey, Zo?" Meredith says. Zola looks up at her. "I'm glad that you got a duckie for Caroline too. I'm proud of you."

Zola nods, and pulls a little harder on Meredith's hand for a brief moment to let her know that she has understood what Meredith said.

"How did you get to be such a good big sister?" Meredith asks.

Zola looks confused, and it takes Meredith a split second to realize that she isn't answering because she hasn't had to try. Finally, Zola says only, "It's so easy, Mama."

When they get to the fountain, it takes Zola a few tries to get used to the idea. She isn't quite brave enough to run up to the fountain and touch it while she's still completely dry, but when a jet of water shoots up from the ground and drenches her, she shrieks with laughter.

"Mama!" she cries. As water drips from her skin and hair, she scrunches her shoulders up closer to her ears and smiles. "Wet!"

She runs back to Meredith and asks for her duck, and Meredith watches her pretend to have the duck swim through the tiniest pools of water and ride on top of jets of water. She is pretty accustomed to Zola's style of play, knowing that, right now at least, while Zola is imaginative, she prefers to play pretty normal games like zoo, and restaurant, and hospital. It's rare that Meredith sees her playing in wholly fantasy worlds, but the cape on the rubber duck might be opening up new possibilities, because she's pretty sure Zola knows that ducks can't blast into the air like rockets.

While she sits on the outskirts of the fountain and watches Zola play as the sun warms her shoulders, she calls Derek to check in.

"How is everything going?" she asks.

"Everything's fine here. How's Zo?"

"She's good," Meredith says. "She's playing in the fountain. Did Caroline take a bottle?"

"I haven't tried yet, but I'm sure she'll be fine. She's just snuggling with her daddy at the moment, and we're watching Sports Center. Right, Bee?" he coos.

She loves this voice, the soft, buttery one he uses only on their daughters. She imagines them lounging on the couch—Caroline loves to snooze on Derek's chest—and for a second, she's so taken in that she forgets why she called in the first place.

"Ok, well if she doesn't eat, she's going to scream, Derek."

"I know, Meredith. I've heard her do it."

She laughs sarcastically. "Well, neither of us have heard how loud she might scream if she gets hungry and my boobs aren't there to come to the rescue."

"We have to try it sometime," he assures her. "I promise, I will ask you to come home if I need you. Go enjoy Zola. We're fine."

"You've got to try to get her _before_ she starts screaming. I can get home whenever," she says again.

"I know, Mer," he says. "Ok, they're getting ready to recap last night's Yankees game; this is required viewing. Caroline, say bye to Mama. We'll see you later!"

She hangs up and watches Zola squatting on the concrete, zipping her duck back and forth over the wet pavement. A few minutes later, she gets a text from Derek. When she slides her phone open, she sees a picture of Caroline drinking contentedly from a bottle with a brief message: "Don't worry about me, Mama!"

Zola is getting more daring now that she is completely soaked and basically has nothing to lose. Meredith watches her run to the center of the fountain and back several times, shrieking with delight every time more water hits her. After a few times, she turns back to Meredith. "Come on, Mama!"

Meredith shakes her head, but Zola persists. "Mama, you too!"

Meredith grimaces. She has not packed a bathing suit for herself, and even if she did, she's six weeks postpartum and in no mood to wear it. But it is unusually warm outside, and this is Zola's day after all, and nothing she is wearing won't dry in the sun.

She slips off her shoes and leaves them with her bag on the outskirts of the fountain, on the dry concrete, and she joins Zola under the fountain. It's easy to stay dry at first because they're far enough from the jets that are constantly shooting water upwards and outwards, but then a light stream of water rains down onto her hair and part of her shirt.

Zola laughs. Standing in front of her mother, she stretches up her arms in a request to be picked up. Meredith scoops Zola into her arms, marveling at how big she seems now that she is mostly used to holding a newborn, and Zola wraps her legs around Meredith's waist.

Both of them have wet hair, and Meredith's shirt, which was only damp before, becomes soaked as Zola presses her wet bathing suit into her. Zola wraps her arms around Meredith's neck, kisses her, and says—with so much joy—"_You_ are the _best_ mama!"

* * *

After nearly seven weeks at home, Derek can tell that Meredith is jonesing for a surgery. She has been calling him at work, just to check in, since she started her maternity leave, but over the past week and a half or so, she has been calling more and more.

She has a pretty good knack of paging him when he actually does have some time to talk, so much so that he thinks she must be getting his schedule each day from an intern or one of the charge nurses. He even bends their rule of no neuro talk, because he can tell she's desperate.

The surgery he has today, however, he can't bring himself to tell her about beforehand. His patient is fifty years old and has a tumor on his C8 vertebrae, lying over the nerves that control a dozen critical hand functions.

"You've done this before, right?" Matthew Pollock asks from his pre-op hospital bed.

"I have," Derek replies.

"I've been a commercial painter for 30 years," he says. "I need my hands."

"I know," Derek says. "I'm going to be extremely careful, and obviously, we'll do everything we can to preserve as much function as we can."

"These hands feed my kids, Doc. I have no intention of filing for disability. I want to work. I need to work. So I need you to get this one right. Can you help me out with that?"

Derek smiles, and nods. There's no way Mr. Pollock could know how much he understands, how hard he really will try to save his hands, but he assures him again that he will do his very best.

While he scrubs, he tries not to think about the fact that Matthew Pollock has three kids to support and has expressly told him that these nerves are non-negotiable. It's not helping him prepare for what he knows will be a long surgery, and he knows what the stakes are without dwelling on them. Years of practice have made it very difficult to psych him out, but this case feels different.

Mr. Pollock's procedure is a delicate one that involves the careful resection of tumor while avoiding the fragile, critical nerves. Derek takes his time. This guy needs his hands. And so the OR is almost completely silent for hours while Derek works, and he speaks only to give instruction, not for idle chatter.

When he finally closes the Mr. Pollock's back and steps away from the table, he won't let himself breathe a sigh of relief. Not yet.

Meredith calls again once he's out of surgery, but he still doesn't mention the procedure, and she really can't talk either. She just asks him to pick up dinner on the way home, and tells him that she'll see him later.

Later, Brooks pages him to let him know that Matthew Pollock is awake. He is pale and groggy from the anesthesia, and looks small against the pillow. He got the whole tumor, so the patient's symptoms should resolve regardless, but he hopes that he hasn't created a whole new hell for this man.

He watches Brooks do a basic neurological check, and everything looks fine. His vitals are stable, his pain is under control, and he is as alert as he can be for just coming out of a long surgery.

But the real test is when Derek takes Mr. Pollock's hand in his. "Can you squeeze my hand?" he asks softly.

Matthew Pollock doesn't speak, but he does manage to squeeze Derek's hand. Hard. On paper, this is a routine case, but Derek is so relieved and proud of what he has done for this man. A wave of relief rushes over him, and even though Mr. Pollock's eyes are closed in exhaustion and can't see him, his face lights up in a smile.

When he walks in his front door later that evening, with take-out containers and Zola in tow, Meredith puts the baby into his arms within thirty seconds of his arrival and takes the food from him in exchange.

"She just wants to be held," Meredith says, "And I just need a minute."

Caroline is thriving, obviously mostly under Meredith's care. She's put on four pounds since birth, her hair has gotten a little longer, and she looks more alert and aware each day. Derek notices that Caroline is staring up at him with what he swears is a twinkle in her eye, and he would bet anything that they'll finally get a smile out of her soon.

He holds Caroline with one arm and uses his other hand to eat dinner. He throws their rule out the window, and tells Meredith all about Matthew Pollock, and the C8 vertebrae, and the best handshake he's received in a long time.

She drinks it up, asks all the right questions, and congratulates him on a job well done. It's one of the reasons why he loves her so much. She gets it. She wants it just as much. She knows how much it all means.

He and Meredith get the girls in bed, taking turns with the long list of things that need to be done: dinner dishes, baths, feedings, stories, and cuddles. Once he gets Zola into bed, he pops into Caroline's room, where Meredith is nursing her in the rocking chair.

"Zola's asleep," he says. "I'm going to take a shower. Are you coming to bed soon?"

"Yeah," she says. "She's almost done."

Derek slips into the shower in the master bathroom, letting the hot water wash away the stress of a very long day. He's noticed a big difference, either in perception or reality, in how they spend their evenings after having a second baby. Before, it felt like they had a little more time to eat dinner, to relax, to have a glass of wine—even though Zola still needed to be bathed and read to and put to bed. Now, it seems like he's sprinting to work so he can sprint home and then flit in and out of sleep for a few hours before he does it all over again. It's a new kind of exhaustion, but he wouldn't have it any other way.

He's not in the shower for more than seven or eight minutes when he hears the bathroom door open. Before he knows what's happening, Meredith slips into the shower with him.

"What are you doing?" he asks in surprise.

"I'm showering with you," she says simply, wrapping her arms around him and kissing him. "Are you objecting?"

They haven't tried to have sex again since last week. Part of it is just that there is very little time or energy, but if he's being truthful, what happened when they tried last week freaks him out. He doesn't want to hurt her, but he also doesn't know a way around it, and so he's been avoiding the issue and hoping that a solution will just present itself.

But his wife is now wet and naked and standing in front of him, and now it's _impossible_ to avoid the issue. Frankly, she looks so good that he doesn't want to avoid it anyway. Perhaps this _is_ the solution.

"Not objecting," he says, returning her kiss and gasping when she grips him firmly in one hand.

"Good," she says. "Because the girls are asleep, and you saved a life today, and I'm on a contact high."

He laughs a little, but what she's doing to him is quickly making his mind fuzzy. The combination of the water cascading down his back and the blood coursing through his veins is dizzying.

"Meredith," he says breathlessly.

"Derek," she interrupts. "We're getting back in the saddle, or whatever."

"We are," he agrees.

"We are. Are you going to touch me?"

"Yes," he says without a moment's hesitation. She is soft curves and warmth and lips and hands everywhere, and she's quickly making him lose control. He's gentle with her, running his hands up and down her sides and kissing her lips and shoulders and breasts.

She moves backward, and he follows until her back is flush against the shower wall and his body is pressed firmly against hers.

He wants her so much, but he worries. He wants it to feel good for her too. It always has before, and although he knows it isn't anyone's fault, she deserves a release as much as he does. He has always taken great pride in being able to give that to her.

He takes his time, does all her favorite things until she moans loudly and asks for more. He knows her well enough to tell the difference between a shriek of pain and one of pleasure. He's finally gotten the latter. When she wraps her arms around his neck and one leg around his thigh, he lifts her up so she can get both legs around his waist with her back still pressed against the wall.

"Take me for a ride, Derek," she says.

* * *

It's one of those mornings when everything feels like it falls into place. He doesn't have to work, both girls wake up happy, and somehow—miraculously—he and Meredith both feel rested. The sky is overcast, but the forecast does not call for rain until the overnight hours, and so he packs a lunch and the four of them make their way to the lake.

Caroline dozes off after a few minutes in the stroller, and Zola walks a few paces ahead of them. They've walked this path before what feels like hundreds of times, but it feels different this time, at least to him. They take Zola here often, but at just over seven weeks since her birth, this is the first time that Caroline is going too.

The lake is beautiful, quiet, peaceful, and perfect for fishing. He loves the view from their house, but this winding walk through the woods, where the trees are spaced just far enough apart to let the light shine in, might be the thing he likes more. Before, he used to think that this unspoiled land, this haven, is why he bought this land, what he wanted out of it. But now, as he watches Zola squat to pick up a pine cone, and then pop back up, skipping along for a few paces like she is making up for lost time, he knows that, even if this isn't why he bought the land in the first place, _this _is why it still holds value.

They spread a blanket out on the grass in the clearing in front of the water, detach the car seat holding Caroline from the rest of the stroller, and set it down next to them. Zola squelches into the mud at the water's edge in her new pink rain boots. Her old ones, with black and yellow stripes and tiny antenna were outgrown just a few weeks ago and will be saved for Caroline. Even though Zola seems to like her new shoes, she was a little reluctant to part with her old ones until she realized, somewhat delightedly, that her favorite honeybee was going to get bee boots one day. Suddenly, her growing pains were that much easier to bear.

"Mama," Zola calls. "Come with me!"

Meredith takes a peek at Caroline and sees that she's still sleeping before joining Zola at the water. He watches the two of them standing at the edge of the water. Zola is in further than Meredith, who isn't wearing boots, and when she realizes, she backs up to stand closer to her mother and holds her hand. Zola points at the surface of the water, trying to get Meredith to see something in the lake, but Meredith must not be able to because Zola points ever more insistently before she finally shrugs and gives up. She stands there with Meredith for a few minutes, and then inches back towards the water so that an inch of it or so runs over her rubber-clad feet. Still, she never lets go of Meredith's hand, even though they both have to stretch their arms out a little to maintain their hold. As they stay that way, Derek doesn't know who needs to hold onto whom the most.

Caroline stirs in her car seat, bundled in a sweater and knit hat and snuggled under a fleecy blanket. She opens her eyes and stares intently at him. Her focus has improved so much over the past few days, and he loves when she looks at him and _knows _that she's looking at him.

"Hi, Bee," he coos. "Did you have a good nap?"

He unbuckles her and lifts her gently into his arms, cuddling her until she wakes up fully. "Caroline, look at Mama and Zola," he says. "When you're bigger, you can do that too."

He bends his knees and puts his feet flat on the ground, settling Caroline on his thighs. "Caroline," he says, tapping her nose with the tip of his pointer finger. "Hi, pretty girl."

It doesn't take long for Zola to notice that Caroline is awake, and when she does, she darts back up the bank of the lake, kicks her boots off onto the grass, and crawls onto the blanket next to Derek.

"Hi," Zola says, taking one of Caroline's fists in her hand. "Daddy, you didn't say Caroline woked up."

"She only woke up a few minutes ago, Zo," he says. "You didn't miss anything. How was the water?"

"Cold," Zola says. "Too cold for baby Caroline's feet. But I can go because I'm big and I have boots."

"You're right," he says, and just like that, Zola is up and walking through the grass in her stocking feet, already on to the next thing.

Meredith takes her place at his side, and leans in and kisses Caroline's cheeks and belly over and over. Caroline gurgles and flails her arms at the attention.

"How's my girl?" Meredith asks. She traces her finger lightly over Caroline's cheeks, and can't help but kiss her again. "Caroline, what do you think about the lake?" Meredith asks. "Do you like it? Daddy will take you fishing here with Zola when you're bigger."

He shifts Caroline to the crook of his arm, holding her so she can look out at the water, even though she won't really be able to tell what it is. But she's so calm in his arms, staring peacefully at the scene in front of her, that he thinks that maybe she does know.

"I think she likes it," he says.

"Daddy," Zola calls from a few feet away. "Look what I got!" Zola squats in the grass, her elbows on her knees, and holds up a slimy, wriggling pink worm. "A worm!"

She runs it back to the blanket and holds the creature out to them, like there is nothing at all repulsive about it. "We can take him home, Mama?" she asks. Derek grins. Zola already knows that if she wants something, she needs to clear it with Meredith first.

"Hmm," Meredith says. "I don't know, Lovebug. I don't think that would be a good idea."

"Why not?" Zola whines. "I like it."

"I know, but I think he needs to be with his worm friends."

Zola gives her a skeptical look. "I only saw one. No friends."

"Worms usually are underground, Zo," Derek says. "His worm mommy and daddy and brothers and sisters are all under there, in the dirt. We don't want to take him away from them, do we?"

Zola shakes her head. "I can put him back."

"Ok," Meredith agrees. "But you can find some other stuff to take home if you want. What about another pine cone so Caroline has one too?"

Zola nods excitedly. "Good idea!"

She darts off to put the worm back in the grass, and then starts to scour at the edge of the clearing for pine cones. Meredith gets up too.

"Let me know when you think she needs to eat, ok?" she asks him. "I'm gonna go with Zola."

He holds Caroline, intermittently pressing his lips to the top of her head, while he watches Zola and Meredith pick up three or four pine cones before Zola switches to dandelions, probably because they're easier to carry, though Zola would say it is because they're prettier.

Zola drops a fistful of dandelions, freshly plucked out of the earth, onto the blanket next to him, but then takes one out of the pile and puts it on Caroline's stomach. "That one is Caroline's," she says to Derek in a serious voice. "Don't lose it."

"I won't," he says. He watches Zola go back to Meredith. The two of them, bundled in jackets in the cool autumn air, lie in the grass and stare up at the sky. Meredith has one arm wrapped around Zola, and her head is tilted towards the little girl as she speaks. They're close enough that he can see them so clearly, but far enough away that he can't hear the things they whisper to one another as Meredith points up at the clouds.

"Caroline, there's your mama and sister," he says softly, like he can't believe it, like he can't believe they're there and that this is his life now.

He doesn't let himself think about it very much—the difference between then and now—but when those thoughts do creep up on him, it is almost always here, by this water.

This is where he used to come when he missed Meredith, or when he wanted to save her but didn't know how, or when he wanted her back when he was sure she was lost.

This is the place he goes when he wants to be alone. The morning after he batted Meredith's engagement ring into the ground, the morning after they lost Zola, and the morning after they took Mark off life support were all spent here.

It's strange, then, that this place gives him so much peace because all of those memories are associated with hubris and longing and shame and heart-wrenching grief. But maybe he likes it because he knows that every time he comes here, he thinks about all the times before and how they got better. He thinks about Meredith's face illuminated in candlelight, and of her loopy signature on a blue post-it. He thinks about the stunned disbelief that came with holding Zola in the hallway of the old house, and of Zola toddling towards them, arms outstretched while he fumbled for the video camera. He thinks about the baby in his arms now, who was never supposed to be here, and what Mark would say if he could see Derek following in his father's footsteps, wrapped around the fingers of his two daughters. He would tease him and say that he and Meredith better try for a boy next.

Meredith gets up a few minutes later, and brings Zola back to the blanket with her. "How's she doing?" she asks, reaching for Caroline.

He shifts the baby into her arms. "She's good. Do you want me to feed her, or do you want to?"

He has tried to take the pressure off Meredith when he can, knowing that she has been running herself ragged trying to keep up with Caroline's demanding appetite and that everything will be harder when she goes back to work in a few weeks if Caroline still isn't used to a bottle. Fortunately, while Caroline prefers Meredith, she will let him feed her if necessary.

"You can," she says, "But let's do tummy time for a little bit first. We haven't done it yet today." Caroline grunts and whimpers when Meredith settles her on the blanket, tummy down. "Oh, I know, Honeybee," she says. "Your favorite thing."

Caroline is getting stronger by the day and so she tries to look up at Meredith, supporting her own head the whole time.

"Hey, Zo," Derek says, plucking a thick blade of grass out of the ground. "Watch this."

He situates the grass tightly between his thumbs and blows. The grass vibrates and makes a whistling sound, and Zola laughs with delight. Even Caroline looks up in confusion.

"Do that again!" she says. He obliges and Zola cracks up like it is the cleverest thing she has ever seen. "I can try too!"

She picks her own grass and lays down on the blanket, tummy down just like Caroline, and faces the baby. She tries to mimic him, but can't quite figure out how to do it. She blows into her hands, but doesn't have the grass pressed tightly enough between her thumbs and winds up blowing the grass out of her hands entirely.

Caroline thinks it's funny, though, and her eyes widen as she watches her big sister. Zola tries again and again, to no avail, but on her fourth try, something amazing happens. Zola still can't whistle with a blade of grass, but when she fails again, and the grass goes flying, Caroline's eyes twinkle and her mouth widens in a huge, unmistakable smile.

He looks up at Meredith in stunned disbelief, and he knows that she saw it too because her eyes are full of tears. He can't imagine what this must mean to her that Zola got this milestone. He knows how much she wants them to love one another, how badly she wants them to be close. Zola has made her feelings about Caroline abundantly clear, but this is the first time that Caroline has returned the affection. It's the first time that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, they know that the feeling is mutual.

"Daddy!" Zola cries. "Caroline is happy!"

Meredith wipes tears out of her eyes. Seeing her cry, he feels like he could cry too, because he knows that for all that has happened to them in the past, and for all they have lost, there is so much joy to look forward to. Despite everything, and against all odds, these girls are both here, and they are a family.

He thinks that maybe their hearts will always be a little bit broken, that a part of them will always be chipped away and lost due to grief over Mark and Lexie. But all of the parts that are left are _so full_, and that is something to celebrate. This gummy, drooling smile is proof that life goes on, that things get better, that people can heal.

Suddenly, it seems like they've been waiting for this smile forever.

* * *

**A/N: I am so sorry for the long wait, but if you made it to the end of this 11,800 word chapter, I hope you can understand why it took so long! Thank you to all of you who have left a comment up to this point. I would love to hear from you again. And I would also love to hear from you if you haven't left a comment before. If you can spare a second, please let me know what you thought!**

**There was a lot of ground to cover here, and I hope I did it justice! I'm just happy to finish before the last few episodes air. Thank you all again for reading! Bring on Baby Boy Shepherd!**

**Edit: In my rush to post this the first time, I forgot to thank SingCindyLouSing for her help on this chapter. I really appreciate it! Thank you again :)**


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